RR Steering Drop arm, Ball Joint

Undo the nut and belt it with a hammer if you don't have a ball joint splitter.

We do it all the time when uprating the drag bar & tracking bar.

Niamh.

On or around Mon, 26 Apr 2004 21:47:42 +0930, "Philip Degenhardt" enlightened us thusly:

the one onto the drag link on the 110 is rebuildable, you can get a kit for it. held in with a circlip at the bottom of the arm. Not sure if the RR one is the same, but it might be. PAS on mine, dunno if that makes it different either.

Phillip

There is a kit to rebuild the drop arm ball joint. It is reasonably easy, the hardest part is compressing the joint after assembly to get the circlip in that holds it all together.

Sean

Is it worth it for a £3.50 component?

Niamh.

It's pretty much the same - pretty straightforward but, like somebody said getting the circlip in can be awkward - I used a G clamp with a small enough end to close the unit up and fit the circlip around the end of the clamp into the groove in the fitting.

It's a hell of a lot easier than trying to get the whole drop arm off the steering box.

Graeme

You're talking about a track rod end, aren't you?

The drop arm ball joint is a completely different thing... and costs a little more, and it's a sight harder to get the drop arm off :(

Regards

William MacLeod

I use a very small 3 leg puller to press the cover plate in - does the job ok.

Indeed!

Regards

William MacLeod

They are all the same. Niamh, are you getting mixed up with the track rod ball joints?. I agree best bet with them is to replace but the drop arm ball joint is a different kettle of fish. Only way to replace this is to rebuild it or replace the entire drop arm which can be a bugger to remove.

Sean

In which case we are talking about different models of RR, the drop arm is attached to the steering box via a spline and the only ball joint is the drop arm-drag bar one (on a Classic)

Niamh.

On or around Tue, 27 Apr 2004 06:55 +0100 (BST), snipped-for-privacy@4x4cymru.spamtrapped.co.uk (Niamh Holding) enlightened us thusly:

which is the one that you get a kit to rebuild, saving the effort of getting the arm off.

Mostly, it's the ball joint that goes, no need to disturb the arm unless you also need to swap a steering box.

and re: compressing it, you need a small jack and a smallish socket - the circlip should fit over the socket, stand the socket on the jack, place the whole lot under the joint, wind it up gently until the thing's compressed, fit the clip, wind it down again.

I'm still not convinced we're talking the same ball joint.

To remove the ball joint from the end of the drop arm all we do is undo the crenellated nut and remove the entire ball joint leaving the drop arm attached to the steering box. It's often harder to remove the ball joint from the drag bar than getting it off the drop arm.

See

Niamh.

I seem to recall Niamh mentioned a Classic, and these have a straight drop arm with a track rod end type ball fitted and are different than the older drop arm which you can rebuild, definitely to be done in situ.

Martin

Right, that's the confusion cleared up, I'm talking about a different model.

Niamh.

On or around Tue, 27 Apr 2004 08:11 +0100 (BST), snipped-for-privacy@4x4cymru.spamtrapped.co.uk (Niamh Holding) enlightened us thusly:

different drop arm. I sit corrected, I'd assumed that the 90/110 ones were the same, they're not.

On or around Tue, 27 Apr 2004 12:07 +0100 (BST), snipped-for-privacy@4x4cymru.spamtrapped.co.uk (Niamh Holding) enlightened us thusly:

HBol seems to imply that early (pre-83) arms have a non-replaceable ball joint, later ones are serviceable. The disco book shows the same type as in Niamh's picture, which I assume is the same as an even-later RR.

The pictures for later rebuildable arms in the RR book are the same as the one on my 110.

not actually looked at the one on the disco...

Both of us now know where the confusion arose.

Niamh.

I stand corrected!

Sean

My drop arm (1973 RR) doesn't look anything like the picture. The ball joint is part of the drop arm.

Thwere are two versions of this kind too. Early iones don't have replaceable ball joints, you need to replace the entire drop arm. Later versions are replaceable.

I think part of the confusion is caused by the term 'classic' when applied to Range Rovers.

That's not a RR drop arm - it's a Discovery one. They were used on the Discovery for a few years and are IMV a far better arrangement than the RR one. I've come across a few earlier Range Rovers that have had these retrofitted but never seen one that was factory fitted on a RR - not that that rules it out !

cheers

Dave W.