Radius Ball Challange

Airsho93 · Jul 26, 2012

Hello Everyone, I got past my muffler falling off problem. I now want to stop the wobbling back and forth of the front tires. I had my wife move the steering wheel back and forth.

The radius ball cup is loose and moving so I am going to take it off and look at how to fix this.

My concern is when I take the two nuts off will the thing (braces) pin me to the ground? What precautions should I take so I don't get hurt?

Thanks for the input to those who have messed with this before.

Tim · Jul 26, 2012

Put a floor jack under one side as close to the ball as possible and still get the cap off. Let the floor jack down slowly. Then remove the cap and install a new rubber ball cover and replace the cap. Don't forget the cotter pins.

Tim

Glenn C. · Jul 26, 2012

You are also probably going to find that the bolt through holes in the housing are worn excessively. Steel bushings can be machined that will slide over the bolts into the worn holes to take up the wear.

Marco Tahtaras · Jul 26, 2012

First, the radius rod (wishbone) will drop down a bit but not go anywhere. If you had your head right below it you may get slight bump! The front spring settled in the cross member holds things in position.

I'm not in agreement with bolt holes at the ball coupling being an issue. The upper cup can't shift in the clutch housing and that cup holds the ball in position. The bolts, sleeves, springs, and castle nuts simply maintain the proper pressure which keeps the ball sandwiched (centered) between the cups.

John LaVoy · Jul 27, 2012

I agree with Marco on getting the bolts tight and holding everything centered. If there is a lot of wear on the ball you can buy a large washer that has been cupped from the parts suppliers or make one yourself to take up some of the wear. I have not been a fan of the rubber ball replacement they tend to push the axle to far. The sleeves mentioned above are to allow the assembly to move that is why there are springs on the castle nuts this is to absorb some of the bumps on the road.

RockHillWill · Jul 27, 2012

I offer another viewpoint on the importance of the bolts at the wishbone pivot area.

The bellhousing is a cast part and as such requires a draft angle to be released from the pattern / mold. The bolts are intended to be vertical. The holes for the bolts can be drilled vertically from the outside of the bellhousing, but to have a horizontal platform for the head of the bolts to seat on requires that a counterbore be machined at the top/inner surface of the bellhousing.

I had an issue with steering shimmy that I was unable to correct with conventional wisdom and suggestions. As i took more items apart, I finally got to the point where I was looking at a better bell housing when I noticed the huge amount of wear at this area. My first assumption was to sleeve the holes (from the bottom) as well, and I did do that, with moderate improvement. I then noticed the large wallowed out area at the top of the bellhousing area where the head sits in that machined counterbore. It became very clear that the more contributing issue was the height from the bottom of the counterbore to the bottom of the bellhousing.

I was at the archives about this time and looked up that bolt drawing and found 13 different drawings for that pin. Some released, some were the typical evolutions, with the main differences being the distance from the shoulder of the bolt to the bottom of the groove for the retaining pin. It varied as much as 1/8". I had about 80 of these used pins to look at, and did notices a large difference in that dimension, (worn). I also had 20 NOS? ones that all had the same depth.

It seemed apparant to me that the vertical assembled height would be more critical to determining spring loads at this assembly, so I made a fixture to hold the bell housing upside down in a mill, and then used a counterbore tool that attached after the tool holder was inserted into the hole and machined out the dis-similar worn areas to a dimension that is .040" to .060" above original to accomodate a hardened steel sleeve so that the top of the sleeve was evenly located relative to the retaining pin bore centerline.

When reassembling the items, I take particular care to see that the groove bottom of both pins fit closely to the retaining pin.

I have done this on my three 'A's' and 7 others with good results so far.

Just a different viewpoint.