My 1987 245 with 236k miles, M47 transmission failed the RI safety inspection for a bad left/front ball joint.

Did some research here on the BB, the job seemed easy enough...and it was.

1) Loosened 3 of the 4 bolts that hold the ball joint to the strut housing, they broke free pretty easily will some torque on my 1/2" breaker bar. Access to the fourth was limited due to space.

2) Removed the three nuts (18mm) holding the ball joint to the control arm, they came off quite easily. Pulled the ball joint bracket (the part that the three bolts go through) out of the way which allowed the strut housing/rotor/caliper assembly to swing out.

2) With the strut/rotor/caliper assembly free, this allowed me to reach the fourth (12mm) bolt that holds the ball joint to the strut housing. This last one was a slight PITA only because I had to hold the strut/rotor/caliper assembly while applying torque to the last bolt.

3) The balljoint (w/attached strut housing bracket) fell right out. Took the unit to my vise (I highly recommend a vise for this job) and removed the (19mm?) nut that holds the bracket to the the ball joint. Assumed that the bracket would come off easily but I was wrong. Now I know why people recommend a pickle fork for the job [which I had :) ]. That bracket was stuck on there, some whacking on the pickle fork with a hammer didn't do too much so I graduated to a BFH (Big F-ing Hammer) which also didn't budge the bracket. Finally decided that I could hang/pull on the pickle fork with my 250lbs of body weight (I'm 6'7", a skinny Swede) which did the trick. The bracket flew off, hit me in the chest while I fell backward onto my ass. :) I also think the pickle fork somehow hit me in the head...but I don't remember that part.

4) Pulled out the new, FCP Groton bought (Moog/TRW) ball joint, compared it to the one that I took off. Yep, the general shape matched. Put the recently freed bracket on the new ball joint and to my surprise the threaded "bolt" portion of the ball joint wasn't long enough to even go through the hole in the bracket...how am I supposed to tighten the nut on this "bolt" if I can't see the threads?! Hmmm, "FCP must have sent me the wrong one", I thought to myself...for about 30 seconds before I realized that there is a plastic, conical shaped cover that was protecting the actual "ball" portion of the ball joint. Duh!

5) Put the bracket on the ball joint and torqued to 44ft/lb. Ready to go back in. Even though the Bentley Bible says to use four new bolts for the strut housing, I used the original ones since I plan on junking the car in another three months. I did use some Loctite though.

6) Tightened the four strut housing bolts to 18ft/lbs and then attached the control arm bracket to the control arm. In my research, some have said that to get the control arm bracket lined up properly they had to jack up the whole front end of the car. I didn't need to do this thankfully. The bolts in the control arm were lined up properly with the bracket on the ball joint, all I needed to do was pry the control arm down (using a crow bar) enough to expose some of the bolt threads after which I could hand tighten the nuts. Wrenched the three nuts down and torqued to 85ft/lb. Put the tire back on and cleaned up.

The job took me a little more than an hour. It was actually one of the easier jobs that I've done. Thankfully I a) didn't break any bolts, b) didn't knock myself out with the pickle fork, and c) realized that the plastic cover on the ball joint comes off and gets thrown away. :)

Bean



--
'80 242GT 92k, '94 945T 123k