Got the pic's now.
Recap...
I needed to replace a front left ball joint as it was knocking. I purchased a ledforder RBJ102930/BJT ball joint only from euro car parts (ecp). They like many sellers sell the ball joint on their own. LR doesn't. LR don't even have a part number for the ball joint on its own. Most online sellers put /BJT or similar at the end of the LR part number.
After a lot of messing around I got the old ball joint oft by drilling/grinding out the hardened rivits. I then realised the new ball joint wouldn't fit the original suspension arm fitted to my 2001 hippo. The arms are original fit RBJ100290 according to microcat 2014 and the LR main dealer. The new ball joint is about 14mm thick and the original 8mm. Sizes are approx.
So I ended up putting the old ball joint back using the new bolts from the new ball joint. I used a pillar drill to make sure I drilled straight through the rivit. Unfortunately the dent on top of the rivit may not have been perfectly central to the middle of the rivit. Hence when removing the mushroom head from the rivit after drilling... I realised the holes were slightly offset from the rivit. So my suspension arm had oval-ish holes in it. :doh:
After contacting ecp and telling them the problem they agreed to take back the ball joints. I sent back both (1 new and the other had its bolts used) and they refunded £45.02 (original cost £47.40). They paid for the collection. The bolts were slightly bent with a little rust on them so it was good of them to refund both when 1 was not fit for resale thereafter.
In the end I went to the LR main dealer and bought a whole new suspension arm complete with ball joint. I asked for RBJ102930 and they supplied RBJ500690 which supersedes all front left suspension arms on Freelander 1's. This was fitted and the knocking has stopped. The LR part was supplied in a brown box, but as you'll see from the pic's below, the ball joint looks the same as the ledforder one from ecp. Hence we think ledforder supply LR with their oem parts. LR charged £144.19 for the suspension arm, driveshaft nut and ball joint nut. This includes an allegiance discount. Expensive some would say but the hours it took me to mess about and late nights working in the cold... too me it's not worth the feking about and time.
ECP are still selling the same part under the same number which will potentially cause trouble for others. They have been told about this. If you try to fit a ball joint to your existing arm... offer it up to see if it will fit first.
Tracking has been done with my trackace and the odd feeling of the tyres not being right has now gone. This only happened after the new parts were fitted, which was to be eggspected.
Original and new ball joints
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Main dealer suspension arm and ball joint fitted with ledforder ball joint sat on top.
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Original and new suspension arm. Bolts fitted so I could temporally use the old ball joint after drilling/grinding out the rivits.
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