Berlingo - Problems during damper removal, help needed.

tr0ndel0nd · Unread post by **tr0ndel0nd** » 30 Nov 2009, 11:24

Hello,

I said yes to help a friend change the bearings on top of his Berlingos dampers. As I am not from an english speaking country, I'm actually not sure what the word for those bearings are.

I'm used to working on Japanese cars, as I have two myself, but this french car is something else. I loosened the damper from the hub, removed the bolt that attaches the steering.. er.. arm to the hub, and removed the top bolts from the damper.
I'm used to there being enough clearance to be able to pull the damper out when you've loosened it from the hub, but all I managed to do was pull the left hand driveshaft out of the gearbox.
I pushed it in by hand, and bolted it all back together.
However, there's now a knock coming from the front left part of the car, and I'm pretty sure I've got something to do with it!

Are there any howto's on damper change on these cars, and do you have any suggestions as to what I've messed up?

I didn't remove the droplink from the damper, before you poke holes in my story.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

HDI · Unread post by **HDI** » 30 Nov 2009, 12:54

Can you provide more information on the knock ?

tr0ndel0nd · Unread post by **tr0ndel0nd** » 30 Nov 2009, 12:56

It doesn't have a fixed frequency, and is not related to speed or rpms. It's more of a knock during suspension travel, it seems. And it's reportedly gotten worse, so I've told my friend to not drive it, and I'll take a look at it and try to whack at the driveshaft in case it is not fully in. I can't really see what else I might have loosened when I worked on it.

Unread post by **Peter.N.** » 30 Nov 2009, 19:12

The driveshaft not being fully in would have been my suggestion so give it a try.

citronut · Unread post by **citronut** » 30 Nov 2009, 19:32

do not whack the driveshaft home, i think if this was thee fault it would still be leaking gear oil, maybe you have not seated the strut top mount fully,

the best way to remove the strut to work on it would be disconect it from the hub and the drop link first,
then undo the three nuts holding the strut top to the inner wing

regards malcolm

tr0ndel0nd · Unread post by **tr0ndel0nd** » 30 Nov 2009, 19:52

Thank you for you replies!

No, it's not leaking gear oil that I am aware of, I don't know if it's possible to get it "halfway" in and still have it seal the gearbox?
I should be able to eventually get the driveshaft all the way in if I undo the top mount of the strut, and gently caress it with a rubber mallet I suppose?

I do like the top mount idea though, although I don't quite believe in it. But I'll gladly be wrong about this!

I'm going to give all the bolts a going-over tomorrow.

On a different note - what size is the allen key you're supposed to use on the droplink? 4.5mm? The 4mm doesn't quite seem to cut it, and I can't imagine that the french would use inches!

citronut · Unread post by **citronut** » 30 Nov 2009, 23:37

it might be a tourx drive,

regards malcolm

tr0ndel0nd · Unread post by **tr0ndel0nd** » 30 Nov 2009, 23:39

And if it's not, I'm considering hammering one in anyway!

I just need to get the knocking sorted for now, so I'll leave the droplinks for a while.

citronut · Unread post by **citronut** » 01 Dec 2009, 07:53

quite offten it is easyer to grind the nut off, but obviously only if you are fitting a new drop link,

or sometimes the use of an air hammer gun will spinn the nut off before the swivle pin rotates, as these swivle pins are not a tapperd fit they are straight

regards malcolm

Unread post by **Old-Guy** » 02 Dec 2009, 12:57

You say you didn't remove the drop-link, but if you have rotated the 'ball' half of the bottom joint (by trying to undo the nut), maybe someone in the past has 'cured' a slight rattle in the bottom drop link joint by rotating the 'ball' through 90º so that what were the unworn sides of the ball became top and bottom, so reducing the slack in the joint? A cheap and easy temporary 'fix'.