20 replies to this topic

[humph]

Thanks for the clarifications guys. I have to admit to playing a bit dumb here, I'm an engineer by profession, but these term are not in common use and quite frankly nonsensical to the layman.  I added shims to mine so that the joint was loose, I then removed them one at a time until the joint was tight (nipped), then added one back in to get the desired movement/looseness (End Float)

 

To answer the question on lapping, I did mine with an electric drill. I put the ball joint stem in the drill, like a bit.  This was then smeared in lapping paste and lapped with the hub while swivelling the drill. There used to be a great video on Youtube by a guy from Miniaddicts that went through bearing replacement and ball joints, but it's gone as far as I can tell.

Edited by humph, 24 April 2015 - 10:12 PM.

[RooBoonix]

Thanks for the clarifications guys. I have to admit to playing a bit dumb here, I'm an engineer by profession, but these term are not in common use and quite frankly nonsensical to the layman.  I added shims to mine so that the joint was loose, I then removed them one at a time until the joint was tight (nipped), then added one back in to get the desired movement/looseness (End Float)

 

To answer the question on lapping, I did mine with an electric drill. I put the ball joint stem in the drill, like a bit.  This was then smeared in lapping paste and lapped with the hub while swivelling the drill. There used to be a great video on Youtube by a guy from Miniaddicts that went through bearing replacement and ball joints, but it's gone as far as I can tell.

 

This is technically not the right way to do it as you can overheat the ball joint and damage the heat treatment, apparently... I did it by hand just incase. Many people do use the drill method however... I wish I did, it takes AGES by hand, I have a small 4v screwdriver I could've adapted looking back on it

 

Cam.

[fenghuang]

How do you tell when the bearing surfaces are smooth enough?

[RooBoonix]

When you can move the ball in the joint in all directions smoothly.. When you tighten the ball joint down you may still find tight spots. Depending on their severity you should relap until smooth. When I did mine I relapped one as it had a major tight spot, a couple had small tight spots which I ignored as I didn't feel they were bad enough to worry about too much.

Its down to your judgement and how much time you want to spend lapping in the joints. A couple of mine took 10 Min's others took 20 to 25...


Cam.

[fenghuang]

Found some good advice here
http://www.theminifo...hat-is-lapping/
Especially about not using a drill, grade of paste and engineers blue.

[spiguy]

I should do this next time. I used to always follow what a mini garage told me, which was to set them so that they were free to move in all directions without binding, with a spanner on the nut on the pin. In hindsight reading all the above that is probably too tight, touch wood I never had any issues and got a couple of years each renewal doing about 10k miles per year.