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Lateral Links


Synesthesia
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Originally posted by yel-low

 

Have you ever wondered why your lateral links are so damn expensive? Ever wonder if there was anything you could do to make them last longer?

 

I did! So this is what I did.

 

I cut one up today….

Very rarely does the ball joint side fail. It’s usually the side that resembles a heim joint that fails.

Here is what it looks like.

 

IPB Image

IPB Image

 

What you will notice is that the joint is made up of 5 layers.

There is an outside metal sleeve, a rubber dampening layer, another metal sleeve, a plastic journal, and some woven composite type of material that the ball joint rides in.

 

You can see the various layers here.

IPB Image

IPB Image

 

Note that there is some fraying and worn spots in that fabric like layer. If you look closely you can see where the ball joint has worn away so much material that it has exposed some of the plastic (shiny spots)

 

This is the ball joint. If you look closely you can see that the left hand side appears to be in normal state. On the right (where the majority of wear occurred) you can see that it is bright and shiny.

IPB Image

 

Unfortunately there really isn’t any easy solution in fixing the joint. I have a theory that rotating the internal ball joint might take up some excess slack in the joint by exposing the un-worn side to the plastic race, but that’s just speculation. This can be accomplished by grasping the internal bushing flanges with a pipe wrench and rotating it slowly. I try to do a 90 degree rotation. I will post back with my finding once I put some miles on the car.

 

I realize that the entirety of this post is probably just worthless information for most. I just like sharing my findings with the few that care to read this kind of stuff.

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