Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[RichardW]

No - apparently M10 x 1.25, so they are M10 fine - although if after market ones are fitted (we changed these didn't we?) they may well be std M10 x 1.5

[Mandrake]

Well that's the first half of the ball joint done, and what a struggle!

Richard called around today with his two little helpers and we got the hub out of the car in a reasonable time, awkward but no major problems, the main snag with that part of the job was one of the brake caliper bolts was so tight it broke Richards socket drive Torx T55, (sorry! ) luckily I had one too that had a meatier shank and it managed to get it undone, just.

We then headed over to Richards with the hub assembly just as the heavens opened up to make use of the giant vice and mig welder, and that's where the real fun began.

We ended up having to weld a nut onto the old joint since the flange was totally mashed up from last time and stillsons wouldn't move it either. Chisels and heat also didn't touch it. Even with a nut welded on, a breaker bar with a scaffold pipe and a blowtorch it took us I don't know how long. We were on the verge of giving up and looking for a replacement hub when it finally let go! You can see what was left of the joint with welded on nut here, it's had a hard time today....



Before we started removing the ball joint we were a little bit suspicious of the wheel bearing, with the hub carrier in the vice it seemed to have some play in it, however by the time we had finished heating the ball joint the wheel bearing had a lot of play in it... whoops. So that means a new wheel bearing is required. I think there is a chance the rattle may have actually been play in the wheel bearing rather than the ball joint!

So it was onto the wheel bearing puller to get the bearing out which went a bit more smoothly than the ball joint, although the circlip took an awful lot of persuading to come out as it was rusted in. A new ball joint has been fitted successfully so the hub is now awaiting a new wheel bearing to arrive over the next few days before going back on the car.

All in all success, so far, although it was a bit touch and go for a while there as that must have been the most stubborn lower ball joint ever I think!

Thanks to Richard for all the help today, when I say help, what I actually mean was that I was helping him do the job. I think I'll be OK to do the reassembly of the hub back into the car by myself though, which is something I can do after work on a week day now that the days are quite long.

Fingers crossed the remainder of the job goes to plan.

No - apparently M10 x 1.25, so they are M10 fine - although if after market ones are fitted (we changed these didn't we?) they may well be std M10 x 1.5

I double checked and service citroen does say M10x1.25, but as you say the track rod ends are after market - Lemforder.

I might get both M10x1.25 and M10x1.5, for the cost of a few nuts its easier to just get both kinds! I'm actually struggling to find a source of M10x1.25 nylock nuts in an 8.8 or 10.9 hardness rating, the only M10x1.25 that I've found so far that are readily available are just "zinc plated steel" with no hardness rating specified, and I think for a steering joint its important to have a grade 8.8 or better nut ?

[white exec]

Try avonstainlessfasteners.co.uk, Simon

[Mandrake]

Stainless steel nuts aren't anywhere near as strong as plated steal - I'm hoping to find plated steel nuts in at least an 8.8 rating.

[white exec]

Correct.
Try these:
http://www.boltmasters.com.au/nuts/nylo ... &CATID=480
Search under Nuts > Nylon insert > Metric or Metric Fine
Maybe they have a UK outfit.

[lexi]

A lot of the times I just walk into Quickfit or similar and see the boys. They always have spare nuts in boxes for all sorts of steering and exhaust stuff. I have rarely failed and if I do, I just go to Budget or somebody else. They often have to put new nuts on these items after separating to get to other things. Put a couple of quid in their tea kitty. They are open Sunday as well.

[ekjdm14]

We're quite lucky to have a fastener specialist near us & generally visit them for anything that needs to be decent quality or is a bit unusual (non-critical/common size stuff I have a good selection of nuts/bolts kept from past jobs & scrapyard visits that usually comes up trumps). Not sure if they post but maybe worth a shot if nobody local can help. http://www.threadfast.co.uk/ I'd imagine a fast-fit place like lexi said ought to be able to sort you out for the price of a box of biccies though

[CitroJim]

That was a bit of a mission Simon!

Well done you and Richard, good work and a good job you had access to some big-boys toys to get the job done

[RichardW]

That joint was tiiiiiiight!! We were about to give up, but had 'one last go' with 2 blowtorches on the hub, and I had to commission my extra long extension tube (an old washing line pole but I had to saw the end off it to get it over the breaker bar). It was the same as the one on the 307 that resisted - the thread was not good in the hub. Tight all the way out, and the new one tight all the way in; but it tightened up OK. No idea what was up with the bearing - it seemed a little odd when we got the hub out; it was going round under the circlip, whereas I am sure they normally go round further in, but there was no roughness or play. By the time it been in the vice and the hub heated up, it was well wobbly!! My 32mm socket is just slightly too large to use as a mandrel to drive the hub flange out of the bearing

[Mandrake]

Finally found a source of nylock M10x1.25mm nuts in grade 8.8 zinc plated steel:

http://www.ukbolt.co.uk/m10-m12-m14-m16 ... 4703-p.asp

I've looked at that website before and they have a huge selection but the search and navigation is really wonky making it really hard to find what you're looking for among thousands of other similar items as the search doesn't narrow down very well!

They have them in bags of 4, 10 or 100, I decided to order a bag of 10 for £3.95 to have some in stock in the future so I'm not ordering small quantities of nuts and bolts every time I need one... I have a bag of M12 and M14 nylocks already so I might as well have M10 as well!

[Mandrake]

Quick question if anyone has access to the data - what are the tightening torques for all the main bolts on the hub assembly ?

EG - stub axle nut, bottom balljoint/arm nut, track rod end nut and strut to hub carrier mounting bolt ?

Although I'll be standing on a breaker bar to tighten the stub axle nut as I don't think my torque wrench will go that high, I can use my torque wrench to do the rest up correctly, so I might as well get them right!

[RichardW]

Hub nut 236 lb ft
Lower balljoint 33 lb ft
Strut clamp 41 lb ft
Track rod 26 lb ft

All dressed up looking for a party to go to

Own work

[Mandrake]

Ah very nice.

Now all I need is some fine weather to actually put it back in.

One other bolt torque figure I forgot to ask about - the brake caliper to hub assembly bolts ? Those were rather tight on the way out...

[RichardW]

77 lb ft - ie no where NEAR as tight as they were to come out!!

Let's hope it cures the rattle!!

[Mandrake]

So on Wednesday night I got everything back together and the car is back on the road again, a good 2 weeks before we are due to go away on holiday up north in it!

I picked up the reassembled hub assembly from Richards the day before and the weather was nice so I got stuck in straight after work. I did run into a few snags though. (I always do with old cars!)

The first problem was that the ball joint heat shield, which was always a bit mashed up and an iffy fit came loose as I was handling the hub assembly, and even though I was careful and don't remember doing it, I apparently put two small holes in the rubber boot on the lower ball joint either with my hammer or the screwdriver that I was using to hammer the heat shield back on.

I'm lucky to have noticed them as they were right on the lower edge of the boot above the large circlip, and they were only visible when tilting the joint a certain way. In fact I think it's possible the rubber may have actually torn when tilting the joint too far as it doesn't look like the boot can cope with the full range of motion of the joint when it is not constrained by being connected to the car - so something to be aware of I think when handling the assembly during installation.

Luckily I had another identical new ball joint to steal a boot from, but that meant a careful and nerve-wracking removal of the good boot without damaging it, and then trying to get the large circlip over the boot on the destination joint without punching a hole in it - which proved to be quite tedious and challenging but I got there in the end!

I had some fun trying to figure out how to re-engage the hub assembly in the strut, I ended up hammering a 3/8" drive 7mm allen bit into the split to open it up wide enough so that it would slip over. Reassembly continued at a decent clip until I discovered that the thread of one of the holes that holds the hose guide plate was damaged and I couldn't get a bolt to go into it. It had hammering marks on the corner of the casting which we must have done during disassembly and that must have crushed the thread inside. Whoops.

I think I do actually have the correct tap for that thread to attempt to repair it, but I had absolutely no idea where it might be and daylight was getting short so I opted to bodge it for another day, with one secure bolt in the other side and a cable tie to keep the near end from vibrating:



When I get time one day I'll find a new bolt and have a go at tapping the thread, but it seems perfectly secure for now. I was then nearly finished with the assembly when I started scratching my head because I couldn't see anything to guide the handbrake cable and realised the handbrake guide loop (which also has one of the ABS cable guides) was missing! (As can be clearly seen from the photo above)

In a panic I searched everywhere and couldn't find it. I'm terrible at putting things down and loosing them but I also didn't remember removing it from the hub before we took the hub to Richards so I asked Richard to have a look and he found it on the floor in his garage, so it must have fallen off there. Whoops! It was getting pretty late at night and well into dusk by then so I resigned myself to picking up the part from Richards the following day and waiting for another fine day to finish the job, which was tantalisingly close to completion!

But Richard would have none of that and insisted on driving over with the bracket right then and there and helped me finish off the last bit of the job which only took about 30 minutes. That is well beyond the call of duty and I am very grateful indeed as it means everything is back together and working again without having to wait until next week for another fine day. So a big shout out for that, and I hope it didn't get him too badly in trouble with the misses.

We went for a brief test drive and to be honest its hard to tell if it has fixed the clonk or not - I thought I heard it clonk once but after he went home I took it for another much longer test drive to give the car in general a workout before our holiday and couldn't hear anything obvious, and apart from wheel balance the car was driving like a dream. It has always only clonked in very particular circumstances so it is hard to get it to do it on cue, and after listening to all the rattles in the Ion every day (mostly rattling front brake calipers it turns out, which I need to do something about soon) the Xantia is mechanically very quiet indeed, with basically no rattles!

If it does still clonk occasionally then at least I know a wheel won't be about to fall off as all the ball joints and the wheel bearing are all accounted for and good!

In other news Richard has also pointed me towards a local company who claim to be able to balance centreless wheels and after speaking to them today they are confident they can get it spot on, so I'm taking it in to them tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

If I can get the wheel balance spot on before our trip away (which will be a round trip of 400-500 miles on mostly motorways and A roads) I'll be very happy indeed, as it isn't much fun to drive the car at speed at the moment with all the vibration...