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[MutantCav]

Ok so last night in the dark I ran over a tow bar that was sitting on my drive...like a t*t rather than jack up the car and remove the offending tow bar, I drove back over it until the car was free of said offending tow bar...luckily the tow bar was fine! lol  

The steering idler passenger side however was not as I managed to snap it in the process!!

So following guide I removed the old snapped one today...and removed the one from a scrap car I have here as needs sorting rather urgently so fitted the replacement...

Problem is that the centre bolt turns with the nut...I gather you need to apply pressure to the back of the ball joint for it to grip...but how?? As a one man job applying loads of pressure to the joint and doing up the nut at the same time seems rather a tricky process...

Also will the old ball joint regrip or do I have no choice but to get a new idler arm??

TIA for your help

[HerefordElite]

Read this MC:
http://www.omegaowners.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1231333835

did mine last night and used a trolley jack under the idler to steering arm joint to apply pressure so that the tapper grips and you can then tighten the nut

[MutantCav]

Tried that (and its only possible as far as I can see with the outer bolt) but the whole wishbone lifts with it negating a lot of the pressure! Didnt work

[Marks DTM Calib]

The trick is to use a normal nut rather than the locking one as this allows you to pull the idler down onto the splines without spinning the ball joint

[MutantCav]

Ahhhhhhh ok that makes sense lol

However after much swearing (seems the locking wheel nut key has worn down and now wont undo the locking wheel nuts despite having just undone the wheel nut just an hour before!!) and banging on of 19mm sockets to free it...

decided to jack up the joint higher and job done...

then slotted a bar over the wishbone and under the back joint and jacked up the far end of the bar to push it in place and job done...

Shame I didnt see DTM's reply first lol

At least I will know for next time as the locking wheel nut problem and the refitting the nut problem aside it was a piece of cake to do...for the sake of the £8 it cost from Halfords I would highly recommend a ball joint splitter as it saved loads of time (also bought a fork like ball joint splitter for £5 as even quicker for taking the old joints off)

[jjleonard]

I don't suppose any of you have taken pictures of this process? I need to do mine but all I can see are guides with loads of text. I'm not entirely clear on the components referred to in these guides so could do with an idiots guide.

Failing that, it might well be a lot clearer when I just get down to it. I might well take a load of pictures when I do mine and update the howto - whilst i'm doing the wishbones and droplinks too.

[MutantCav]

Believe me, when you take the front wheel off...it will all be very obvious

Personally I used a spanner for the back nut due to access to get a socket on...much easier...and a bit of pipe as an extension bar helps a lot to free the nut initially...generally though access is very good and lots of space to get sockets and spanners in to where they are needed