6 replies to this topic

[tiger99]

There has been a lot of discussion lately about poor quality rubber boots on track rod ends and knuckle joints, among other things. I just found the link below while looking for something else. They would seem to be all metric but obviously there is a bit of stretch. Just measure carefully and pick the right one. Hope this helps a few people!

 

dustboots.eu/catalogs/Polyboots-Ball-Joint-Boots-MPN.pdf

 

[sonikk4]

It will be interesting to see which ones fit. I might have to have a little measure up in a couple of weeks time.

[sledgehammer]

good idea - it needs something , sad to condemn a good ball joint ,

 

because a rubber boot is actually made of chocolate

 

I'm wondering if they are making them out of real rubber & that is the reason they are failing ?

 

the rubber at the moment , is much poorer than in the 70's , so they are doing something wrong

[tiger99]

I think those are poly, which I consider to be useless in many places that it is used on a Mini, especially front subframe mounts, but an excellent material for this purpose as it is not degraded by oil or ozone, and commonly used in similar siruations on modern vehicles including off-roaders. All materials have their proper uses.

If these don't work out dimensionally, there are some more possible sources. I have to think that our usual spares suppliers are not trying very hard to source quality parts. Lack of imagination perhaps.

[MRA]

Well if you guys want to crowd fund a project I can then make the tooling and the parts out of decent materials, the failure is down to cost, cheaper materials have more fillers, more fillers means less strength and therefore poor quality, typically I could get a steering track rod end boot for about £8.25 retail for top quality based on 1000 off

[Dusky]

Don't forget knuckle cups Martin, they drive me mad!

[MRA]

That would increase the cost due to tooling but not impossible to do, I used to make some on a plastic injection machine :)