Landlover99

Active Member
Gentlemen, an update... You may recall I spotted a split in the rubber gaitor that protects the drop arm's ball joint from dirt/water ingress and decided (extremely foolishly in retrospect) to attempt to remedy this (essentially) non-issue that I really should have just ignored and forgotten about. Hell, we don't even have MoTs in my part of the world to worry about! It was loftily asserted by some (apparent) sage on this forum that it was easier to replace the whole arm than to rebuild the ball joint. Fair enough, I thought, and bought a complete new arm. Now I had to get the old one off. Everything went reasonably well until I got to the part where I'd removed the steering shaft nut and needed to drop the arm off its mating splines. It wouldn't budge. Banged it with big hammer (as suggested my many repsondants) to no avail. Only had a Draper 3 leg puller in my toolbox so purchased a new 2 leg one for this purpose, a Bergen "heavy duty commercial quality" job so it said. Looked pretty robust, too Hooked the puller over the arm's removal lugs securely and proceeded to do up the screw. I quickly exhausted all the effort I could bring to bear with an ever-increasing series of longer rachets and plumped for a 600mm breaker bar. With a huge amount of grunt, I finally heard a reassuring "crack" from under the box - only to find that one of the puller's arms had broken off. "Drop forged" indeed - looked more like a casting from the grain at the fracture but I can't be sure. Possibly if it were indeed a casting, though, it would have failed much sooner, I can't say. Anyway, I had a brainwave and removed the remaining good arm and replaced both it and the broken one with 2 arms from the old 3 leg puller. Started winding in again. "Crack!" Surely this time I'd beaten it? Nope! one of the pins that fasten the arm to the body of the puller had shattered. At this point I decided I was going to need some specialist help and got out the Yellow Pages. A competent-looking bloke turned up in another Defender with "Recovery" plastered over it. He confidently announced he'd dealt with this probem before, including on is own 'ender. He produced a tool case with an extremely impressive-looking hydraulic kit inside and set to work. Cost the best part of a grand, he said. I wouldn't have argued. It was clearly a formidable piece of kit and though it was of considerable size, it went on without difficulty. Anyway, fast forward over an hour of grunting and swearing and the puller was back in its case and being placed back in the 'ender along with its accessory kit, leaving my engineer friend to wipe his hands off whilst explaining - with a new modesty that had been hitherto lacking - that though having applied approx. 10 tonnes of pressure against the arm, it hadn't budged one millimeter. "I've never known one like it," he said, "they normally just pop-off in under a minute with this thing." Having left it to absorb some penetrating oil, he's coming back tomorrow with a bigger puller which will require the removal of a few more dangly bits to obtain the necessary access, but I'm wondering WTF to do if this fails as well. I know some folk from last time suggested just cutting if off, but I can't see how one could do this without damaging the splines on the steering shaft. Any suggestions?
 
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If you don't have a problem other than the balljoint, why not just change in situ. Pretty easy job, done it a few times, although I can usually get the arms off if needed.
 
If you don't have a problem other than the balljoint, why not just change in situ. Pretty easy job, done it a few times, although I can usually get the arms off if needed.

Must admit I hadn't thought of that; good point, sir.
I wonder if I can take the bits I would need off the new arm I bought without damaging them - and the rubber boot in particular?
 
If you cut the arm and keep looking at the bottom of the slot you have cut you can see the splines before you damage them, did this with mine.
 
I wonder if I can take the bits I would need off the new arm I bought without damaging them - and the rubber boot in particular?

You can, if you are careful. Gently prise off the retaining bands and remove the boot. Dissasemble the rest as usual.be careful when you press out the cup from the arm so as not to damage it.
 
Firstly, i,m going to apologise for sitting here and smiling like a cretin but i have this job ahead of me and tbh, i looked at the arm and thought, bet thats tight. Anyways, ive decided to go the replace the joint in situ route. I hope that you get it sorted, you have more patience than me as i,d have taken to the angle grinder long before now. Patience isnt my strong point.
 
Firstly, i,m going to apologise for sitting here and smiling like a cretin but i have this job ahead of me and tbh, i looked at the arm and thought, bet thats tight. Anyways, ive decided to go the replace the joint in situ route. I hope that you get it sorted, you have more patience than me as i,d have taken to the angle grinder long before now. Patience isnt my strong point.

I'm not sure patience is such the desirable virtue it's made out to be. Impatient people tend to get the job done quicker!
 
Coda:

Well, we tried one more puller, a heavy commercial one intended for use on coaches and trucks. I'd make up a clamp to prevent its legs from spreading under pressure and slipping off the lugs on the drop arm, since we'd had some problems with this during earlier efforts. Anyway, the clamp did its job very well indeed; there was no spreading this time. However, one of the pins articulating the two sections of the leg on one side sheared off so I decided enough was enough. I paid the man off and rebuilt the ball joint in situ as per Turboman's suggestion. What a nightmare that would have been if there had been no alternative and the arm would simply have HAD to have been removed for some reason! (cheers for the steer, TM).
 
Coda:

Well, we tried one more puller, a heavy commercial one intended for use on coaches and trucks. I'd make up a clamp to prevent its legs from spreading under pressure and slipping off the lugs on the drop arm, since we'd had some problems with this during earlier efforts. Anyway, the clamp did its job very well indeed; there was no spreading this time. However, one of the pins articulating the two sections of the leg on one side sheared off so I decided enough was enough. I paid the man off and rebuilt the ball joint in situ as per Turboman's suggestion. What a nightmare that would have been if there had been no alternative and the arm would simply have HAD to have been removed for some reason! (cheers for the steer, TM).

it works better if you put pressure on arm with pullers and whack the side of arm hard with a large hammer and drift
 
it works better if you put pressure on arm with pullers and whack the side of arm hard with a large hammer and drift

Yes, I too have found that the shock of hammering tends to remove these things more easily than any amount of steady pull.

Glad that you got your issue sorted in the end, Landlover! :)
 
Firstly, i,m going to apologise for sitting here and smiling like a cretin but i have this job ahead of me and tbh, i looked at the arm and thought, bet thats tight. Anyways, ive decided to go the replace the joint in situ route. I hope that you get it sorted, you have more patience than me as i,d have taken to the angle grinder long before now. Patience isnt my strong point.

I had this job last year, I didn't even try to rebuild, I just bought a new arm with the joint in it already, tried for 10 mins, gave up, cut it off, job done in about an hour and a half. patience is also not one of my strong points.
Usual landy work routine for me is, change into work clothes, get spanners/sockets out, plug grinder in :D
ok, if its somthing I know im going to do, it gets wirebrushed/cleaned up and penetrating oil squirted on twice a day for a few days.
 
When mine needs doing again, I might treat myself to something like this
HNJ Engineering - Land Rover Parts - Land Rover Defender Steering Puller - HNJ7000000
no detachable jaws to flex off or pivot pins to shear. A bit dear, but if it works it's worth it.

Might well work for the reasons you give, but that price is a real rip off.:eek: I've seen 'em on ebay for around 45 quid; exactly the same. Here's one by way of example but it's still too dear:
Land Rover Series Steering Drop Arm Puller Tool 6000000 | eBay
 
Ah, that's the series version from the same firm, which is cheaper. Not sure why as it looks very similar.
 

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