MadaboutKitcars

Peter, I persuaded the woman to send me one out today (although it's not done that way) she admitted the process is wrong at the moment and they are looking to put form on the web

Cheers
Craig

Shock Call !!!!

I had a surprise call from the lady at the Yeading SVA test station this afternoon.

She said that if I paid the extra 'out of hours' fee, they could offer me a test appointment next Thursday at 7am !! Gulp

So I am now full comp insured and off to try and get an MOT tommorow or Sunday.

Now what's the weather forecast for next Thursday...............

I'll have my fingers crossed for you - But I'm guessing that we'll have two SVA'd cars come thursday!

Awesome just when you thought you could relax for a few weeks! Good luck

Thanks, guys.
I'm getting really quite nervous now!

MOT Failed :-(

OK, so not a good start.
Got up this morning and booked an MOT at a local garage.
Got the car ready and calibrated the speedo. On my Autometer gauge you have to press a button, drive exactly 2 miles and press the button again. I had worked out a 2 mile round trip from home.
Set off, got back and pressed the button. Bingo, speedo now works. (We'll see at the SVA how accurate this method is!)

Next a quick trip down the local petrol station to fill up with petrol. It took 38 litres. Already getting admiring comments from other shoppers.

Then off to the MOT station. A nice 6 mile journey. Wow, this was serious fun!!!!! car ran fine but boy do thus front mudgaurds bounce around.

At the MOT station there was much scratching of heads about MOTing on the VIN. Then there was about 20 mins of trying to agree what the VIN is as it is so badly stamped, covered in powder coating and 18 digits long.

Eventually, they agreed to do it and ignore the last letter.

Everything was going fine until they found 3-4mm play in my lower front supension balljoints
They could see they were new and not worn but the balljoints are clearly faulty. (these were the cheap ones I bought off eBay

The good news was this was the only fail points (one headlight needed the smalllest tweak)

I've picked up a couple more balljoints from my local motor factor and hope to get them fitted tommorow.

Also, the mudgaurd stays have been hitting the edge of the alloys, so I will need slightly larger spacers.

Despite the failure, I really enjoyed driving the car back and couldn't resist racing a Honda Type R down the dual carriageway, he he..........

Fantastic. Your out of hours fee must be paying for someone's overtime if they are starting at 7am! I guess it also has the advantage that you can get there before the rush hour starts. Good luck!

Robin

Sounds like an interesting way to do it. I guess it could be quite accurate if you use a Sat Nav as well.

So who won then, you or the Honda

Robin

Silly questions

That's good news that nothing to major was up at the MOT, shame about the ball joints!!

I had one of my original with 2mm play that I've replaced recently. Quality seems to be lacking a little with those parts

My video making skills are very basic, but if your bored you can see me on my speedo calibration run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh7lmXGL-tw

the camera is a FlyCamOne2 and was mounted on the roll bar. I need to improve the mounting a little, but gives an interesting perspective. If you look carefully you can see me grinning from ear to ear!

With all the excitment of the SVA test, I hadn't updated you all on my ball joints (ooh er, misses)
Well I swapped them over last Sunday morning, after breaking my 1/2" extension bar (I was heaving on a 6 foot length of scafold pole trying to undo the first ball joint which unfortunately I had loctited in as advised by Haynes manual for metro's)
I eventually applied a little heat which melted the loctite and out it came.
The ball joints were clearly knackered but what was interesting was that I think I had overtightened the locking nut on the top of the ball joint and 'crushed' the ball housing.
Now this rasies the question whether the taper on the metro ball joints is the correct size for the BMW uprights?
If you can pull the ball joints taper through the tappered hole in the upright this suggests to me that the metro taper is too small.
I think i've seen on BMW Sportster with BMW ball joints that are pressed into the wishbone.

The new joints were carefully fitted and just nipped up tight.

They passed at the MOT re-test this morning.

Has anyone still got their original BMW lower supension arm so that we could measure up the taper on a BMW lower ball joint??

Peter

Oh, and another thing was the MOT tester managed to type in the VIN number incorrectly so I had to pay him a full fee to get him to do the whole test again with the correct number. When you get your MOT done on the VIN number, check the number is correct before leaving the test station!

I found this the metro tapper is smaller by 1mm.
If you measure the widest part of the tapper the metro is 15mm and the Marlin supplied ball joints are 16mm.

Stuart

Ah, interesting, so I wonder what type of balljoint Marlin buy in?

Peter

Here is the two balljoints that I removed.



One measures 15.75mm and the other 15.67mm at the widest point of the taper.
Both are 14.20mm at the narrowest.

I wonder what the holes in the BMW strut are?

Peter

I have the part number of the Marlin supplied ball joints. They were Quinten Hazel QSJ10605 or QSJ1060S (Can't read my own writing...)

Robin

Thanks, Robin.
QSJ1060S gets a few hits on Google and it looks like they are Metro/MGF ball joints!
I might try and make a 'tappered cylindrical shim' out of 0.5mm copper sheet as I am concerned the downward forces from the hub will loosen the joint?

Any thoughts?

Peter

Hmm. I suspect the problem is that the BMW taper is almost the same as the Metro one but the tolerances mean that sometimes there is a problem. What we really need is for someone to measure an original BMW one.

I shall be taking my suspension to bits again soon as I am hopefully going to get some replacement wishbones. I will measure the taper on the ball joints that I have while I am at it (assuming I can get them out of the wishbones!)

Robin

It's a shame your not closer, my impact air tool makes light work of removing ball joints!

You can get a socket bit that fits over them in halfords (about £12) which you can combine with a breaker bar

Well, I found a BMW e30 outer suspension ball joint on eBay so couldn't resist ordering it to measure it up.



A quick measure up with my trusty micrometer confirmed Robin's hunch.
The BMW replacement ball joint taper measures 16.50mm at the widest point and 14.50mm at the narrow end.
That means the metro taper shaft is too narrow and will only touch at one place allowing the shaft to pull through more than the BMW engineers planned for.

Taking another look at my build manual (LOL) I can now see a version of the wishbone with these press fit balljoints.
Apart from cost, I wonder what caused Marlin to change the design to the screw-in metro joints?

Makes servicing easier perhaps? You need press to get the push in ones out.

Here is my first attempt at making some shims....





The copper will compress slightly filling the slightly different tapper angles, but I am wondering if the copper will be too soft and the balljoints work loose after time?

I guess i'll give them a try..........

Peter

Hi Peter

Are you sure that the angle of the taper is different and not just the length of the taper? If the angle is different I think we should ask Marlin to comment.

I think your copper shim should work OK (after all they use it for head gaskets) but I think you will have to be careful that it doesn't show - I am sure the MOT man wouldn't be happy...

It will be interesting to see what it looks like when it has all been clamped up and then undone again. If the tapers are different presumably the copper will be more squashed at one end than the other. Should be possible to measure with a micrometer I guess.

Cheers

Robin

Lower Ball Joint

Peter
I am sorry to say this, but how do you guys justify taking an experimental approach to a highly safety critical item such as a lower steering ball joint. If this fails you could injure or kill yourselves, or worse still, others.
This item should not be experimented with. If there is a problem, and you seem certain there is , then go back to Marlin and request they resolve the issue safely.
Regards
Mike

From what i see the Marlin supplied balljoints are the correct size. The issue seems to be with the metro balljoints some guys are buying because they are cheaper. I would be happier fitting the Marlin supplied joint all be it a lot more expensive rather than attempting to make the metro joints fit.

Stuart

I've not had any problems with the metro replacement I got. I'll if I still have the one broken one and compare it to the new ones I got.