I've been saving these jobs up until I had some time to do them.

Jobs for this week are...

Remove, service and replace Haldex unit
Remove, exchange and replace PTU
Replace front shocks
Replace front droplinks
Replace wishbones or ball joints
Clean up and treat any rust that I find along the way.


Haldex unit is done.
Drivers side is all removed and PTU removed ready to take down to Bell for an exchange tomorrow.
Drivers side shock is all built up ready to go back in.


Few questions...

Wishbones - is it worth just doing the ball joints? The rest of the wishbones seem perfect and solid. The drivers side got an advisory on the last MOT for slight play. I'm thinking of just replacing the ball joints on both sides.


Rust treatment, I was going to use some rust converter then paint over any surface rust. Is there a better solution at all?

How did you split the ball joints from the hub.

Ball joint splitter (the type that looks like a tuning fork) and a hammer.

Big bar forcing the ball joint away from the knuckle with a weight on the end - say a 7 stone housewife.
Then hit the casting where the taper is - hard with a metal faced hammer.

The casting "rings" technically it becomes oval for a fraction of a second and because you have applied force (housewife) to separate them, the ball joint male taper pops out of the knuckles female taper. This way there is little chance of damaging the ball joint rubber boot. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

Don't forget the loud YES when it comes out

Andy131 wrote:

Big bar forcing the ball joint away from the knuckle with a weight on the end - say a 7 stone housewife.
Then hit the casting where the taper is - hard with a metal faced hammer.

The casting "rings" technically it becomes oval for a fraction of a second and because you have applied force (housewife) to separate them, the ball joint male taper pops out of the knuckles female taper. This way there is little chance of damaging the ball joint rubber boot.

I did make a rookie mistake yesterday though which has now cost me a couple of days.

I had checked the condition of the springs a few months ago when I purchased the front shocks and they looked good, so decided to stick with the old springs.

I didn't even look at them now as I knew I had checked them previously.

I couldn't get the drivers side to line up properly on the new shock, then realised that I'm missing half of the final coil which looks like it has snapped off at some point in the last few months 🙄

So now I've had to order a pair of springs and wait for the delivery on those.

Fingers crossed that they arrive by Saturday otherwise it's going to take me well into next week.

Still got a few jobs to do whilst I wait.

Fill up the transfer box with oil, then refit, replace the propshaft and mounts.


I just hope the gearbox splines are good enough as Austen said that the sleeve splines were worn in both sides 😳 I don't fancy doing a gearbox swap as well.

you certainly have been busy Jules

[b]Remove, exchange and replace PTU

[/b Can you get replacement PTUs with proper drain plug installed??

Have a word with bell engineering, Austen put a drain plug in a diff for me.