[alfa] Re: GTV-6 Ball joint removal

["Mark Manley" <warpomatic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 20:16:19 +0000, John Brase wrote:
>
>Subject: [alfa] GTV-6 Ball joint removal
>
>Semi related to the current discussion of removing torsion bars, how 
>does one separate the lower ball joint in the absence of the factory tool?
>
>I had a front shock fail and upon investigation found that one of the 
>bolts locating the bottom of the shock had broken and the resultant 
>flexing caused the other attachment ear on the bottom of the shock to 
>break.  Easy fix, I foolishly thought.  I bought new shocks and in the 
>process of removing the old ones broke two more lower attachment bolts 
>off, even after soaking them with PB Blaster.  So then I thought, "drill 
>out what's left of the bolts, re-thread the holes and replace with 
>larger bolts."  Hah!  That ain't happnin.  After an hour on my back 
>trying to drill onto a blind hole I got pretty much nowhere.  (My 
>kingdom for a lift!)  And, even if I did get somewhere I have no idea 
>whether the hole would follow the bolt hole or find its own way through 
>the A arm and emerge out the other side somewhere other than where it 
>should be.  So, now I think the best approach is to remove the lower A 
>arms and do the work on a drill press.  Hence the need to separate the 
>lower ball joint.  An added advantage to this would be that it would 
>give me the opportunity to grind some material off the A arm spacers to 
>try to get back to somewhere near the  correct camber number.  (The car 
>has been lowered and the camber is about a ton too negative.)

       There is a very good resource at the link below. It refers to the
Milano/75 but all the info seems to be good for the GTV6 too.
If you end up replacing the ball joints you will probably need
a large 3 arm gear puller to install new ones. I also used the outer
shell from an old X1/9 wheel bearing ( approx 2.33" ) between the 
puller arms and new ball joint and a cheap impact socket
to rest the puller drive screw in. In my case the bolt on top would never
 have pulled the new bearings into place like the author suggests. Of 
course if you remove the a-arm you will need to disengage the torsion bars,
a trick I haven't learned yet but when I do find time I'll want to install a size or
two larger.

        	http://www.clanger9.org.uk/alfa/index.html#front


                                    Mark Manley
	Hooray The Digest Is Back!

Tulsa,Ok
'84 GTV6
X1/9 x3
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