Front Wishbone Question

[Guest]

Gents
I have a new "Trusted Mechanic" for my car called Greg. He noticed that the bottom balljoints had a bit of play in them during a session sorting my brakes out.

There appears to be 2 options.. Either refurbed wishbones which I can get exchange or a kit that contains all the parts to do up the wishbones... !

Have any of you lads refurbished your own wishbones or is it a case of - dont be silly get the ready refurbed ones... ?

Are all Turbo/S2 wishbones identical or is there wee differences ? Thanks fellas

 

[TTM]

Wishbones were subject to a recall so you may want find out which are the ones you have.

It's easy to replace the ball joints if you have a vise in order to compress the small springs in the ball joints in order to easily release the clips.

At last but not least, is it your car or your mechanic that is called Greg? []

 

[pauly]

ORIGINAL: TTM

Wishbones were subject to a recall

What model years does the recall apply too and do Porsche pay for the parts ?.

 

[TTM]

Not sure about years.
A recall means they should automatically pay for replacement.

 

[sawood12]

Whichever route you go be sure to replace the plastic bushes with metal ones. The plastic bushes will be disintegrating within a few thousand miles. It was always a known weakness with the ball joints. And once the poly bushes disintegrate you have metal to metal contact.

There was a Porsche Post a few months ago where a chap detailed his DIY ball joint replacement. It does seem a simple job if you've got the right tools at hand. However for someone who's done this job before it is a fairly quick job - probably can be done within one or two Mh, so wouldn't cost that much to have a specialist do it. If I were you i'd price up both options and if the specialist route is not significantly more expensive than DIY I wouldn't bother doing it myself.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

There was a Porsche Post a few months ago where a chap detailed his DIY ball joint replacement. It does seem a simple job if you've got the right tools at hand. However for someone who's done this job before it is a fairly quick job - probably can be done within one or two Mh, so wouldn't cost that much to have a specialist do it. If I were you i'd price up both options and if the specialist route is not significantly more expensive than DIY I wouldn't bother doing it myself.

The following month there was a reply by Barry Hart suggesting that the DIY method would result in certain death, or something similar.

Hartech were always the default option for refurbed wishbones, I'd think that most decent indies have a supplier now as it's such a common problem. Wasn't there a suggestion recently that the DIY kits had a serious fault? Something along the lines of there being a real risk of it failing, or am I imagining this? [&:]

 

[sawood12]

Depends which DIY kit you go for. Like most things in life, there are good examples and poor examples. I remember there being quite a strong tide of responses against Barry's comments in a later PP, mostly from people who had rebuilt their own wishbone ball joints and had had no problems after many miles under their belts. I've read the procedure for replacing the ball joints and nothing struck me as requiring anything more than rudamentary skills. I ended up going with Barry and Hartec to rebuild my joints, partly because I couldn't be bothered and the cost wasn't that much, but also because what Hartec has done has developed tooling to assess the shape of the socket in the wishbone to see if there has been excessive wear of it's profile as the ball has contacted the socked once the poly bush disintegrates, and they have developed the tooling to machine the profile back again. For me that is the only specialist part of this process, but most people just rebuild with no problems.

There are also many people in the states who have rebuilt these joints with no problems, and those who race on stock A-arms usually have to replace these ball joints fairly frequently.

 

[pauly]

ORIGINAL: TTM

Not sure about years.
A recall means they should automatically pay for replacement.

Think it's 1988 cars.

 

[Big Dave]

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

There was a Porsche Post a few months ago where a chap detailed his DIY ball joint replacement. It does seem a simple job if you've got the right tools at hand. However for someone who's done this job before it is a fairly quick job - probably can be done within one or two Mh, so wouldn't cost that much to have a specialist do it. If I were you i'd price up both options and if the specialist route is not significantly more expensive than DIY I wouldn't bother doing it myself.

The following month there was a reply by Barry Hart suggesting that the DIY method would result in certain death, or something similar.

Hartech were always the default option for refurbed wishbones, I'd think that most decent indies have a supplier now as it's such a common problem. Wasn't there a suggestion recently that the DIY kits had a serious fault? Something along the lines of there being a real risk of it failing, or am I imagining this? [&:]

Paul.
I think you might find that the other indies, get there wbones from Hartech....As they are about the best refurbed ones around....
I know a few used to,, .....

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Paul.
I think you might find that the other indies, get there wbones from Hartech....As they are about the best refurbed ones around....
I know a few used to,, .....

I know that some used David Gilmour in Scotland as well. Don't know if they are still active, though.

 

[tr7v8]

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

Paul.
I think you might find that the other indies, get there wbones from Hartech....As they are about the best refurbed ones around....
I know a few used to,, .....

I know that some used David Gilmour in Scotland as well. Don't know if they are still active, though.

Not sure Dave is still going I think I had a broken link when I was looking.

Mine came from Hartech! Looked great & lovely engineering. I'd used a rebuild kit & it lasted a few weeks. Personally I think that if the
housing is out of round then you don't have a prayer of getting a new sleeve to fit properly.
The housing is extremely poor design on Porsches part & really needs a proper machined housing which is what Barry does.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all your replies gents....!

I checked my wishbones and both are MBF. Thanks for the heads up Thom. I checked out that story in the PP and the associated discussion on the subject and decided that Hartech are the best option. I am now using the car a lot as my work is taking me from Letterkenny/Galway on a regular basis. I am loving it...[]

BTW Greg is my trusted mechanic - he is also assigned to Faye as well []