Ball joint pictures and techUPDATED 8-27 with subframe pics

[raygreenwood]

So....I am prepping and restoring parts to get my NEW/Restored front suspension back on in the next month.

I have Several NOS ball joints. They are so old (got them about late 90's or early 2000's)...the boots had literally rotted off in the boxes. So I found new boots which I will post part #'s for later (about $5.50 each).

Yes...I have work going on that will get rid of this type of ball joint altogether and will be a solution for a better readily available ball joint and rebuildable ball joint....but it requires machine work right now and between money and time...I have to get this thing back on the ground. Ball joints can be replaced at any time.

As part of making sure my suspension will last and be as good or better than factory, everything is getting epoxy or specialized coatings.

So while working with the ball joints this weekend....I found several odd and interesting items.

These are what I call the "late" style of ball joint...meaning they do not have a pressed/swaged cap on the inside. They are fully cast and the cup, spring and ball stud were inserted from the outside/boot end and then swaged.

This shows the manufacturers marks. ECO or ECD?...the pin logo suggests OCAP to me...and the Audi logo below. This is inside of the back of the joint.

They were not really rusty. They have a black oxide coating everywhere. You can see the back flange here...I filed all of them slightly to take away casting roughness and oxide. You can see why they need a gasket here to make sure they seal well enough to pressurize with grease.

Now....this next one is really ODD. the picture below is of a dissected early style ball joint (with swaged back cap) from years ago....showing the ball stud....just as one would expect it to look...right?

The next few photos are what the ball stud on ALL of my joints look like....mind you these are NOS never installed....and all are the cast back style late joint.

Several views.

the back side showing 1/8" grease hole drilled in the spring dome and the enlarged "weep" hole for the grease fitting.

Detail of the grease fitting. I used 1/4" press in fittings because i had them on hand.

The new boots have a Zip tie groove and fit very nicely.

Finshed joints ready for install. Bolt heads are epoxied as well. The bolt locking tabs i will post pics of tomorrow. I stripped them, flattened them and treated them with phosphoric acid. I have about a dozen. It takes 6.
I had though about cutting new ones from stainless....but if these still lock with no cracks....they will be fine and i will spot paint them after installation so they dont rust.
Ray

[Lars S]

Nice Ray!
Just did my -73 and it has the swaged cap...what year is this..?

Lars S

Edit:
Also whars the groove on the newer spindles for...?
_________________
Porsche 914 -72, Bahia Red daily driver
VW411 2-d -70, White, sold
VW412 4-d, -73, Gold Metallic, daily driver
Suzuki T500, -69, Candy Gold, sold
Suzuki K50, -77, Black, daily driver
BMW R69S -69, White, sold
Husqvarna 118cc, -47, Black, Sold

[raygreenwood]

[VWCOOL]

Is that machine work to allow extra articulation/droop at full suspension travel? To prevent damage?

[raygreenwood]

[raygreenwood]

So....some more details and pictures. And yes.....there are some differences and yet a third variety of ball joint!

And yes....its clear because of several details that there was some potential damage issues with the joints and that VW was busy through the limited run (or at least their joint manufacturers may have been)....working to change things.

OK.....I dont know if early to late terminology is correct or if its just a manufacturers issue. For those who dont know what we are talking about...below is a picture of the "swaged" back cap version of this ball joint.

It was also clear that this joint was FULLY machined on the inside...so this would have been a more expensive joint to make whether it was better or not. The "cast" joint can be seen in my first post. The only machine work is from the boot side where the ball stud and spring and cup were inserted and it was swaged from that side. A LOT less work and cost.

So I stripped the boots from my two third tier spares....looser but servicable, cast back...medium miles back up joints and found this:

Cast joint body...with a straight pin....and something more.....

Both of these joints had a medium hard plastic (probably polyethylene) flanged buffer ring that had largely disintegrated....and seemed to be obviously there to buffer or limit travel....but in my opinion...this plastic ring would do nothing to limit travel or angle if the suspension drove it there. It would simply smash the ring. But it would do well to limit over travel while working on the suspension or installing it from human movement.

And the next three photos have me going..... WTF..... ....I stripped the boot...wiped the grease...and found a single ball bearing rolling around for reasons totally unknown. Have no idea how it got there...but the damage it caused was obvious!

Now...its hard to tell from the next four pictures...but yes....the side with the machined eccentric has more angle rotation available to it that the side without.

Its a bit more detectable when still mounted to the arm. On this pair the wide gap in the eccentric is largely turned facing toward the control arm....so its not just contrast. The joint can flex farther on the side with the machined cut out.

But....its not clear exactly why this was needed...except that some have mentioned a while back that perhaps a ball joint with an eccentric stud was manufactured.

Those of us who have worked on these cars for some time can attest to the fact that alignment is difficult because outside of the ability to split the castor and camber from side to side to balance the alignment.....neither camber or castor can be increased without machine work and parts.

In the parts book I found:

Ball joint: Part # 411 412 165 C

Ball joint with eccentric stud: part # 411 412 165 E

Now....There has been some info found a while back that stated that after a certain chassis #, that the control arm and steering knuckle changed to give several degrees more of positive static castor for better handling.

But....this eccentric should give "0" extra castor adjustment because it does not change the top position of the strut..and "should not" change the forward end point of the ball joint mounting.To "really" affect castor....means the entire control arm would have to slide forward to actually change the rake of the strut and and arm relationship.

Of course I cant really see what the eccentric is doing until I dissect one of these. I will take my worst one and cut it open.

In short...it appears that joints like thus must be oriented properly for benefit. Ray

[Lahti411]

I have a pair of "E"-labeled ball joints that are unused. Is hould check how they look. If i remember correctly the adjustable ball joint has an arrow stamped to the flat surface on tip of the pin to point the direction. Must check this.
_________________
My cars: 1972 VW 411 Variant; 1973 VW 412 4d sedan

[raygreenwood]

[raygreenwood]

Yes.....I cant believe after all these years of reading through the Haynes manual a zillion times......I missed it.

Green Haynes 411/412 manual #091. Page 176, left column, paragraph 7.....right under tje picture of the ball joint wear checking tool:

"A ball joint with an eccentric stud is available which will give extra adjustment to CAMBER if the movement of the front axle carrier is not sufficient (I.e. after an accident) but it is strongly recommended that the fitting of this part for such a reason be left to the VW agent."

So....yes....its for extra camber.

To accelerate the discussion a bit for those who dont yet know about the issues with aligning these cars.....and you will only discover all of the details when you remove the front "T" shaped suspension subframe while renovating or removing the gas tank.........

These cars only had two alignment adjustments:
1. The tie rods to allow toe-in

2. The "T" shaped subframe.....is mounted by three 12mm bolts. The threads for these three bolts inside of the body......are actually large "Tee" nuts that look just like the nuts you would use on a drill press or milling machine to hold down a vise or a material clamp.....th3 ones that slide in slots on the drill press table.

There are slots or rails welded into the chassis that these mounting nuts slide in. The rearward 12mm bolt......has a nut that slides fore and aft. The left and right forward nuts can only slide left and right.......so the whole subframe......cannot slide fore and aft to do any across the board adjustment of CASTOR....which these cars badly need.
However.......these sliding mounting nuts allow the forward left and right ends to pivot side to side.

This has the effect....for instance if I pivot the left forward end of the subframe outward to the left......of reducing the amount of built in castor and increasing the built in camber....on the left side....while simultaneously increasing castor and reducing camber....on the right side of the car.

Its a balancing tool to allow getting the exact same amount of camber and castor on both sides of the car while aligning the wheels.......but.....its only PURPOSE.....by design.....is to split or balance CASTOR......for proper tracking and return to center of steering.

The problem VW ran into with this method......is that doing any adjustment to properly split and center the castor......can make the camber far enough off to cause severe tire wear.

So......their fix was to make ball joints with eccentrics to correct camber after you have adjusted castor via moving the subframe.

One might ask....why they did not simply add eccentric adjusters to the control arm yokes on the subframe......and I found out why while adding them to mine .

Adding eccentric adjusters to the control arm bushing yoke......would require a totally different design of control arm bushing to be used.....and a method of locking the adjustment to the eccentric bolt. As designed.....the 12mm bolt that holds the stock control arm bushing to the subframe....the pivot point for the control arm......requires 58-65 ft./lbs of torque and a lockwasher....and still can come loose over time especially as the control arm bushing bonded rubber wears out and begins to slip on thr steel bushing tube.

What is required......is a flanged control arm bushing.....to spread the load......and about 60% less torque on the bolt....but using a cotter pin and castle nut to keep the bolt locked.

With these parts.....you can then install...with a little drilling and spotwelding....an eccentric bolt identical the ones on the rear trailing wishbones that are used for adjusting toe-in.

This would leave moving the front subframe....as a castor only adjustment.....and any corrective changes to camber can be made with an eccentric bolt.

Pictures of these to come. Ray

[raygreenwood]

Several items in this update:

The arrow shows the index mark for the eccentric ball joint. I cant believe I never noticed it all these years!

These are the steering knuckle to ball joint bolt locking tabs. If yours are no longer in place...its VERY DANGEROUS. Many years ago I had the bolts come loose but not fall out because of no locking tabs (my stupidity in my youth). The car was virtually uncontrollable in turns.

These have been flattened...they probably have about 1-2 more uses before the tabs crack. Then they were solvent washed and dipped in phosphoric acid. The black residue is converted rust. They will then be spot painted after installing.

If you dont have them...you can get suitable ones from places like this http://www.bokers.com/tab_washers.asp
https://www.seastrom-mfg.com/washers_tab_key_notch.aspx

This one is in the UK but gives good examples and terms of what to look for
http://www.fastenerdata.co.uk/fasteners/washers/tab.html

Fastenal has them also.
https://www.fastenal.com/products?term=tab+washers&searchMode=productSearch

The gist is that you need tab washers with TWO tabs. One to bend against the bolt head to keep it from rotating...and the other to keep the washer from rotating by either bending it down on the side of the strut flange or against the tube.

This where they go


The next item...since I mentioned it in the earlier post...and yes...a complete "How To" pictorial is underway....are the subframe alignment adjusting slots and the eccentric bolts I am using for the camber adjustment (which will make having eccentric ball joints no longer necessary)

Right side chassis captive nut for subframe

Left side chassis captive nut for subframe

Rear center chassis captive nutfor subframe

With these three nuts...you can see that the subframe pivots from side to side in the front. The limited fore aft movement of the rear captive nut simply keeps it from getting in a bind.

This is the subframe upside down on the workbench. The two holes are where the control arm bolts go

Detail of the yoke in the subframe where the control arm bolts in. This is the drivers side yoke. This is where we will be installing an eccentric adjustment for camber.

Since I am using spare bolts from the 411/412 rear toe-in adjuster....here is one in the picture. We have to duplicate that oval hole exactly to match the range of adjustment of the eccentric washer on the bolt in the picture

Hole duplicated (rough in this pic) in the front subframe yoke. Be sure to mark centerline first

Locating the eccentric bolt drive plates. This is center

Full negative adjustment....notice how the bolt slides in and out...which move the control arm in and out.

Full positive adjustment,

I added in about .005" of extra slack for the eccentric to move and welded these plates in place

This is the mod to both ends of the eccentric bolt drive flanges...very common on some Japanese cars I have found...to allow locking the adjustment. You only need to use one or two of the set screws at one time....but I gave several options so that there will always be at least one or two holes that are over solid metal and not on open the oval hole.

This is done...because my new control arm bushings will not require 58-65 ft/lbs of torque on the bolt. They require 20-25 ft/lbs and use a cotter pin to lock. It makes for much less wear and better response.
Ray

[VWCOOL]

Crikey... what a complicated design...!

[raygreenwood]

[bmarkstopspeed]

Ray - where did you find replacement boots to fit these ball joints ??? Do you have a source and part# you could post here as I’m in need and would rather rebuild my original ball joints rather than pay $260 each online !!

Thanks,
Brian - Cincinnati

[raygreenwood]

[bmarkstopspeed]

I thought this might help someone else in sourcing a Ball Joint Boot for the 411/412 'hard to find' ball joints.......mine were not worn out, rather just needed new boots and Ray G. was great in helping to source from the site below.

CORRECT BOOT with GROOVE FOR ZIP TIE
https://howeracing.com/index.php/ball-joint-boot-4-bolt.html


Attached are the specs of the cover...

[raygreenwood]

Thank you for posting details.....but wait for a moment.....from the picture from their website that you linked....that is not the correct model of boot from Howe. The correct one has a groove on the big end for a zip tie. I bought both boot types. The one without the groove generally fits....but without a zip tie it pops off.

Take a look at the pictures of the one in this thread.

I am hoping that is the right boot you listed but just the wrong picture on their site.

Also....note the little box in their add in the lower left corner. If we can get the right boot in viton thats the way to go. Ray

[Jeremiah Berger]

When I click on the link it shows me two different parts when I scroll down the 22399v and the 223991. It looks like the 223991 has a groove in it for zip tie..Is that correct?possibly different variations of the same boot?they say the 99v can be used for upper and lower but the 991 only for upper...which ones ?

[bmarkstopspeed]

Ray - good catch, I copied over the wrong link and have updated in my above note and here.....this is the boot with the 'groove' included.

https://howeracing.com/index.php/ball-joint-boot-4-bolt.html

NOTE - I had one fo the VITON boots and really didn't care for it as it was so thin that it almost tears when installed with the zip-tie.....so I'm going with the original material for my build.

[raygreenwood]

[ALIKA T3]