I had a wheel alignment done on my 2 bolt L bug, and the wheel alignment bloke found the caster was a bit out (after front end prangs over the years I reckon). As there is no real castor adjustment, we got another set of track control arms, and he has bent them forwards slightly to correct the caster.


When he went to fit the new set of ball joints that I had purchased, he found they are too loose - they just slip in. I rang the shop where I purchased both the arms and the ball joints, and they checked a few other arms and found some were not as bad, but still loose.

They chased around and found that over-size ball joints used to be available, but are no longer. Has anyone else had this problem, and how did they overcome it?

Failing finding some oversize ball joints, you could get them tigged up and re machined, but authorities frown on welding of suspension components..

Rather than the ball joints are the control arms flogged out?

Had this same problem many years ago and the shop welded around the outside of the socket which shrank it down. Don't know if this would suit you though.

They're a welded construction anyway so as long as a competent welder does the job it won't matter. I'd say source some thick wall tube that the joint will press into snugly. Then cut the old hoops off and weld the section of pipe on.

You could machine a thin walled flanged shim, work out how loose they are and calculate the wall thickness required, no need to weld, this would present other problems as you do not know the material or the welding code for the material, also it would require machining after it was welded to give you a true bore, the shim would be hard to make but is not impossible, then press it in.

I got the arms from VVWS, and I have talked to them about it - they measured 2 other arms they had there - and while they were both slightly smaller, they were both still too big for the ball joints. They chased around and found that Tooleys used to have oversize ball joints available about 8 years ago, but they no longer do. Surely mackaymanx and I are not the only people who have had this problem.

vwo6o, the ball joints measure 36.88mm, and the inside of the hole in the arms is 37.28mm, so a shim would only need to make up 0.4mm, so a wall thickness of 0.2mm - I don't think it would really be feasible.

My wheel alignment bloke suggested welding around the outside of the socket as mackaymanx had done, and that seems like the way we will probably go at this stage. As mentioned, the arms are welded together from new anyway, so I don't see that as being a problem.

I will let you know how we go.

Yes you would be able to turn that thickness, as I said it would take a fair amount of experience, keep in mind that it is illegal to weld suspension components yourself and would take an engineer to approve if you did, on the other hand shrinking it might work, have you thought about heating it up and quenching, just remember the od will have to reduce by .4MM to get to the same size as the ball joint before the interference is achieved, if you do not weld it all the way around you will end up with a bore that is not round.

How about Loctite 660 ?
http://www.loctite.com.au/3320_AUE_HTML.htm?nodeid=8802627715073 

I think VVDS has found some arms for you

I think a weld bead and quench would do the job weld n quench a bit at a time that will pull it in

Followed up with heat-treating and/or shot-peening to relieve stresses ?

It makes the old 3 bolt units look good.

You may not think much of this idea-but it was taught to me when I was an apprentice mechanic in my second year-yes a very long time back.

If there is only a few thou in it-knock all the flux from a small arc welding rod,set the amps what you would normally use for about 3mm plate-then poke the rod inside the opening and quickly move it around in circles touching the opening and making sure it doesn't weld itself to the opening.

This will leave a lot of small welded lumps all over the opening.If there are large ones,quick clean with a dye grinder.I was taught to do this to Valiant tailshaft uni joint bosses.

I used this method recently on some VW link pin bushes.Wasn't happy with one of them,so pressed it out and did it again.Ended up really firm.You can tell how tight they are when pressing them in.

We have decided to go with the weld & shrink method at this stage.

Out of interest, here is a video of how loose the ball joints are in the arms. Looking at the arms, there appears to be only 2 lots of spline marks from previous ball joints, so you wouldn't think they would be that worn in this location.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftWBmpVO60w 

Jeff - nothing on SBO?

I am sure the were some articles on this.
Thought I had this issue but was resolved with a new arm?

If the clearances are closer to .010" or more, then a possibility would be to ream it out slightly bigger, then fit a crankshaft speedi-sleeve before reaming it down to spec size if needed.
I'm with Greg on the shot-peening too........

Barry, I did post up on the SBO FB page, but the main response was from yanks who mainly recommended welding the ball joint into the arm.

I didn't try the SBO forum. I will give it a search if I get time this evening.

contact Joel

I'm sure he will have an answer

I'm seeing Holzl this arvo - i will ash as well

Well, Stewart welded the ends of the track control arms and got the ball joints fitting perfectly. He will fit them and do the wheel alignment while I am away until the end of next week - March 24th