Has anyone any advice on changing a trackrod end ball joint. The rubber is split and I'm struggling to un-couple it from the track rod. Is it best to change the whole assembly? And any advice about fitting it into the steering rack would be handy. I've not got access to an oxy/aceteline torch to get some heat on the threds. I presume they have a ball joint with a threaded pin which screws into the rack? The gater looks ok, but also not sure how easy these are to remove. http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/c/V...a2c81d28936f274c4c83cb8060386291ea695189&TRAS Thanks in anticipation!
You'll need a balljoint splitter to get it out of the hub,(the fork type works well but busts the rubber etc..) The steering rod can be removed from the rack,just peel back the boot and its either 22mm or 24mm so see if you can get a spanner on it and unscrew. To get the boot off you'll need to seperate the 2,not an easy job really and i've only done it with heat so you could take it to a garage to get it off or if you have a shed,put it in a vice then stand a blowtorch on it till it starts to smoke a bit then go from there.Brute force with 2 spanners (or crows feet) from then on but remember it still HOT!!!
sometimes giving the hub a couple sharp taps where the track rod end bolts thru can shock it loose, but it didnt work for me. So I got one of these from halfords, and its never let me down:
Sorry guys, I used my splitter yesterday and removed the ball joint from the hub and changed the bearing too as it was a little noisy... Well, I hope it was the bearing anyway! Forget to mention that bit... I've got a small blow torch so may try a little heat on the thread of the ball joint and the track rod. If I have no joy I'll order a new track rod as well as the ball joint. Cheers
