Tight balls (joints)

danny · Post by **danny** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 7:23 pm

Hi, this weekend I rebushed the front of my s1 elise, replaced the ball joints with new origional ones and track rod ends. When trying it the ball joints are super tight it took two hands on the hub to turn it to fit the track rod ends, the steering is very heavy. Is this normal, most of the cars of have worked on have only two on the front and power steering, so I have not really experianced this tightness before, anybody had experianced with this kind of problem.
Cheers danny

Gourlay83 · Post by **Gourlay83** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 7:35 pm

Hard to say about the Steering without looking at it but all the new ball joints I have fitted to Elises have been tight to move. Usually free off after a few runs.

Can't say that has ever effected my steering though.

Cheers
Alan

danny · Post by **danny** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:16 pm

That's what I was thinking, a few runs should loosen them up. Just checking if that was normal first. Cheers

roadboy · Post by **roadboy** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 10:17 pm

How hard was it to press them in?

Some of the ball jonts out there are slightly too large and go really tight when squeezed into the wishbone. If they are these joints they will not free up and your steering will remain very tight. Its part of the reason you have to be careful where you buy your ball joints from.

HTH

Dan

ABZ-Elise · Post by **ABZ-Elise** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 4:12 pm

I bought the wrong ones for my car a while back even tho they were listed for an elise (eBay). They were completely wrong and the nuts could only tighten up so far but not far enough for the nylon part of the nut to do anything. Now I'll only ever buy from eliseparts for that sort of thing, it doesn't bare thinking about what could happen if they failed.

Kev

danny · Post by **danny** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 4:30 pm

The joints were tight to press in, I did freeze the wee buggers first. I think they will be fine after a few runs, I am just not used to new joints with no power steering, twice as many of them and a polo mint for a steering wheel.
I shall post my results after a few runs. Cheers for the replys.

robin · Post by **robin** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:47 am

You'll know straight away when you drive it - if the steering wheel has a tendency to stick where you left it (rather than spin back towards straight ahead) then the joints are too tight. There was a batch of dodgy balljoints fitted to the S2 (from the factory) for a while - so not exclusively a problem with 3rd part stuff. The elise of all cars really needs the steering wheel to spin freely

Cheers,
Robin

Scottish Elises

Tight balls (joints)

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