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Shogun Sport - Front Suspension Ball Joints


 
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pdh
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 11:39    Post subject: Shogun Sport - Front Suspension Ball Joints Reply with quote

Shogun Sport - Front Suspension Ball Joints

OK so I have a 2006 Shogun Sport 2.5 TDCI and there was a bit of play in the bottom ball joints and the ball joints that connect to the steering arm. Just an advise on the MOT but needed doing and caused the steering to 'float' a bit. I found various advice on here so thought would be a fairly easy job.

Now I'm the sort of person that will try and take the minimum of bits off the car to get the job done, and the bottom ball joints on the front suspension looked like they might come off without removing anything else. Let me put that one to bed right now - they won't. Firstly the bolts that hold it on foul the drive shaft and there is not enough clearance to get the ball joint taper out of the hub carrier assembly without it hitting the shaft as well.

You are going to have to remove the hub bearing, and ideally the top ball joint, as well as the brake caliper. Removing the steering ball joints also makes it easier, and mine had wear in them anyway so needed changing.

Anyway I thought I'd show what I did with a few photos to help anyone else out.

First jack up and support the front end of the vehicle - use axle stands, do not rely on the jack..
Now remove the road wheel - some people have said you should loosen the bolts that hold the hub cover on with the wheel still attached and on the ground, but on my model you can't do that as the hole is too small. I got someone to put their foot on the brake instead.

 

Once the wheel is off remove the small cap that covers the centre of the hub so you can see the spine and the circlip.Remove the circlip. I find a small screw driver works best. Get under one end and carefully pry it up and out of the groove. Work your way round until it comes off. Be careful as it's springy and can ping off at any point and disappear across the workshop. Put it in a safe place - like in the cap. There may also be a washer or two behind the circlip.

While the brake caliper is still attached get someone to stand on the brake and loosen the 6 bolts that hold the cover over the bearing, then remove the brake caliper. Leave the cover in place for the moment

In keeping with the theme of removing as little as possible, I leave the brake hoses connected and support the caliper off to the side on an axle stand.

 

We could remove the bearing and hub now, but let's leave it there for a while, and come back to it later, as it stops the dirt getting into it.

Before I forget - a reminder. I have not removed the torsion bar suspension to do this, so it's still trying to push the suspension down. Without the road to stop it, removing the ball joints at this point would be unwise. So before undoing any of the ball joints lets put a jack under the bottom arm to hold the tension of the torsion bar. The picture shows the nut already off the bottom ball joint, but trust me, the jack was there first. I use a jack because it's adjustable and it helps if you need to move it to get access.

 

Now we need to remove the steering arm ball joint. Technically it could stay, but I was changing it anyway and they are cheap to buy (under a tenner) so swapping it now makes sense. It makes the whole job easier if the steering is not connected and the boot  will probably get damaged when taking it off anyway, so change it.

 

There are a range of spiliters available but the wedge type work well if you don't care about damaging the boot of the joint. I was replacing anyway so that's what I used.

Now the bottom ball joint. These are a pig. First take the split pin out. These invariably won't come out on old bolts, so break the legs off and push them out with a punch. If that doesn't work then they will normally shear off if you put enough force on the nut. Mine came out with a punch.
I broke my first power bar trying to get the first nut off it was so seized. The second power bar turned it but the nut wouldn't budge and it was turning the whole taper round in the whole. I had to hacksaw the nut off in the end. Luckily, because it had been turning in the taper, it wasn't difficult to get out.

The other side of the truck was easier - the nut came off and I was able to split the taper with a normal ball joint splitter. If you use one of these don't forget to tie it to something with a bit of decent string. When done up they are under a huge amount to tension and bend. If they slip off they can travel at great speed across the workshop and will leave a nasty hole in anything in their way, including your head, if it's in the wrong place.

Once it's popped just leave it there and put the nut back on loosely.

 

Now the top ball joint. As you can see mine was well rusted and the nut did not want to come off on either side, so they needed cutting. I was planning to change them anyway - no point doing all this with the bottom one only to find the top one is on the way out. Cost is only about a tenner anyway, if using pattern parts.

It's difficult to get a hacksaw in here so I used a small angle grinder to grind through the nut. Once the nut was off, the taper popped out fairly easily. The heat from the grinder probably helped.

At this point the steering knuckle is ready to drop off because both the top and bottom joints are disconnected. So hopefully you have already lightly screwed on the bottom nut, as mentioned above, to hold the hub while you take the bearing out.

 

Now remove the three small bolts and take out the top ball joint.

 

Now back to the wheel bearing. Remove the two philips screws that hold the  hub nut locking ring in place. They can be tight and do tend to get chewed up - use a big philips screwdriver. The lock ring can now be removed.

 

Next you are going to have to unscrew the hub nut and for this you could use a couple of screwdrivers - but see below. It is a normal thread so comes off anti-clockwise on both sides.

However as you need to be able to re-tension the bearings, when you put them back together, you are much better off making a tool to do this.

The tool is easy to make. You need a couple of long bolts (50mm minimum beyond the end bolt in the middle) and short bolt and suitable nut and and flat strip of metal - I used aluminium but steel might be better if you need to weld the nut and bolt on. Mine was just done up FT  ( 'kin Tight) rather than welding.  The hole spacing between the long bolts is 60mm between centres so they line up with the holes in the tensioner. Mine has another set of holes for my Frontera (more about that later).

 

Once the hub nut is unscrewed and removed you can pull the hub assembly off the shaft. Place it on a flat surface, but support it both sides away from the centre. There is a seal that protrudes from the back and if you lay it on this it could get damaged. Cover the top so nothing falls into the bearing.

 

Now pull the steering knuckle away from the drive shaft. This gives you loads of room to get the bottom ball joint out. There is a small screw on the front edge that also has to come out as it fits into the botton suspension arm. I removed the steering knuckle  completely so I could re-grease it.

 

OK, so now to put it all back together.

Fit the bottom ball joint to the lower arm but leave the bolts loose. Now connect the bottom of the hub carrier to the bottom ball joint and do the nut up loosly. Then fit the top ball joint to the top suspension arm and fit the top ball joint taper into the steering knuckle at the same time. Once all together tighten everything up to the correct torque.

Settings are
Bottom ball joint bolts   95nm +/- 11nm
Bottom ball joint taper nut 147nm +/- 29nm
Top ball joint bolts  30nm +/- 4nm
Top ball joint taper nut  74nm +/- 14nm

 

Clean the shaft on the steering knuckle and re-grease.  Now the hub with the disc break attached can go back on. Refit the outer bearing and the hub nut. You will need the special tool again to tighten it up.

 

So now we need to get the right tension on the bearing. I've seen lots of different answers on here - one said do it up to 200nm then back it off and retigten. 200 !! I think that's going to break something.

However I have a short wheelbase Frontera as a shooting truck and it has virtually identical front wheel bearings and suspension (Isuzu underneath and surprisingly good off road with the right tyres). I have a Haynes manual for that and have done the bearings many times, so I thought I'd follow that procedure. It seemed to work perfectly with no free play in the bearing and a nice smooth rotation.

First torgue the hub nut up to 29nm, then slacken off. Then use a spring balance to measure the rotational load. I use a digital suitcase weigher and these are cheap off Ebay/Amazon and are easy to read. They are also very accurate measuring to 0.001Kg.

Tighten the hub nut a bit then rotate the hub back and forth. Attached the balance to a wheel stud and pull at 90 degrees to the centre line of the bearing. Watch the reading and make a note of what it gets up to before the hub starts to rotate. Keep tightening until you get the required reading - don't forget to rotate back and forth after tightening but before measuring. For a reused bearing it needs to be between 1.2 and 1.7 Kg. A new bearing should be 2.0 to 2.4 Kg

 

Once correct you can now fit the hub nut locking ring. Hopefully the holes for the two philips screws line up.If not, try turning it over as the holes are offset, and it might line up better the other way around. If it still doesn't line up you need to either tighten or loosen the hub nut a bit. You'll need to decide whether to go looser or tighter depending on how close the holes are, but recheck the tension with the balance afterwards to make sure it's still in tolerance. Then tighten the two screws. Make sure they are tight, if they come undone the bearing could come apart and you will lose the wheel.

Now refit the cover and tighten the 6 bolts - you'll need to wait until the caliper is refitted to do this, so you can either do it now or later. Torque the caliper bolts up to 113nm +/- 9nm

 

Then refit the circlip and washer to the drive shaft. Again watch out it doesn't fly off across the workstop. The easiest way I've found is to get someone else to pull the drive shaft towards you. Now you can push against it without it disappearing into the hub. Get one end of the circlip over the shaft and then work round it to get the rest on, then slide it into the groove. Once the circlip is on, give the drive shaft a tug in and out to make sure it's secure. Then refit the dust cap.

If you aren't changing the steering track rod end ball joints then refit the old one. Torque setting is 110nm. I was changing mine so I also disconnected the other end and changed both ball joints. I measured the distance between the centres of the ball joints so they were reassembled to the same length. That gave me a reasonably accurate starting point for setting the tracking.



 

So there we have it, that's how I did my 2006 Shogun Sport front suspension ball joints. I'm not saying that's the best way or the easiest way - but it worked for me. I'm not a professional mechanic so there may be others on here that know better but it worked for me. I hope it helps someone else as well.

Oh, and you will need a few tools. This is what I used.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 11:39    Post subject: Google Ads keep the POCUK free to join!


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peteinchad
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 11:49    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting write up.

I'm surprised that the Sport is very similar to the normal Pajero - half the front end needs to be removed to get those bolts out.
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pdh
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 11:56    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was surprise at how much like the Frontera (Izuzu Trooper) it was. I have the Montero pdf manual and wheel bearings and steering are completely different to that.
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 0:02    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great write up and really clear photos. congrats

Thanks for taking the trouble to do this.  I'm sure it will come in very handy for me before too long.
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peter433
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 18:30    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks very much for posting a fantastic write up. Its things like this that make these forums an invaluable tool. Very greatly appreciated sir !
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pdh
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 19:37    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks. Glad it was helpful. It’s always good to give back and others have helped me a lot when I’ve asked.
Paul
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