[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] [New Search]
After replacing the top bearings , arms and thrust bushings last week , I had to finish the bottom part. I removed my bottom arms and bars, they were in perfect condition, unlike top suspension rotted bearing, arms and damaged thrust bushings. I guess the previous owners did grease the bottom arms regularly and ignored the top arms for 30 years. This weekend I found very deteriorated bottom ball joints, the drivers side was so bad that when I pulled it out, the center shaft was flopping around very loosely. I measured the play and it was around almost 1/4 inch. The passinger side ball joint was much worse, it had scalely chunks of of rusty particles suspended in a brown paste. When I cleaned the ball joint, I noticed that the ball was deformed and had very deep pits. It looked like it was so corroded that it was smaller than the first one I pulled out. This ball looked like it was about to pull out and cause me a very serious accident. These were the original VW stamped ball joints. Good thing I caught it before it happened. It happened to me before with a Volvo, good comotion on the freeway ! I cannot stress greasing the suspension enough, it is not only for the car's well being but for our own personal saftey. I have a question , since my new ball joints have no grease fittings, will greasing with a needle until the rubber seal slightly puffs up be as effective? Is it possible to drill and tap the new ball joint stem to give it greasing capability? I wish to make these last longer than the originals by good periodic greasing. Another question , has anyone looked at page 177 in the hayes manual ? It shows two kinds of rubber axle collars. The modified collars are used to correct castor. Maybe the lowered darksider's can benefit from this. They can correct their bad caster adjustment caused by lowering, this can give them better- safer handling, maybe even give their car a sportcar feel. They can put different peices of rubber from hoses to tire tube rubber on the bottom axle tube mount until their castor is corrected. Check it out , maybe someone can try this and document this on one of the type 3 sites. I went the other way and raised my car by a couple of inches this weekend, seems to drive well, dirt road and pot hole friendlier for me . LEON MARTINEZ 1969 SQUAREBACK EFI/AUTO SAN DIEGO AND TIJUANA ------------------------------------------------------------------- Search old messages on the Web! Visit http://www.vwtype3.org/list/