PhilMeUp

Now that the lower stuff has been attended to, it’s time to refit the upper ball joint end into the top of the spindle. The bolt goes into place. Once again, I used my digital torque wrench to do up the nut to Ford’s specified 90 Nm. This wasn’t particularly tight. If you don’t have a torque wrench, I would describe this as being “medium tight to tight”. With my front braided brake lines, the original grommets came apart and went missing fairly quickly. To get around this, I got some replacement grommets from a brake parts place and hacksawed a groove into each one. That has allowed me to get the grommet back onto the brake line. I then push it into the bracket and rotate it so that the groove is at the top. The grommet back in place, and I’m about to rotate it so that the groove is at the top. With the way that the grommet is shaped where it slides into the bracket, this also locks it in so that it can’t slide out. Once everything was double checked I put the brake disc rotor and calliper back on, followed by the wheel. Job finished!!!! Overall, this was a fairly easy job that someone with basic mechanical skills could do. The problem is the cost of the hand press - unless you have a bunch of cars to do, or are doing cars regularly, it’s not worth spending so much on something that you’ll use once every few years. There are other options out there. Do a search on www.radum.com.au for ball joint and you’ll find a couple of kits there. Part number: RDM-VT01017 Link: http://radum.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=10669 Part number: RDM-BM94-4063 Link: http://radum.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=8686 I’ve got a spare pair of lower control arms here, so some time I’ll take them to Radum and see if they’ll let me have a go at removing and re-fitting ball joints with one of their kits. Radum has a branch in most capital cities, so you can at least go there and see what they have. If you’ve got a dirt bike then get a scissor jack stand while you’re there - very, very useful.

Time to put ring 7 to use again. This time, one side of it will fit over the base of the new ball joint. Another couple of photos showing how ring 7 has a collar that pushes the old ball joint out. Now it’s time to use the hand press to push the new ball joint into place. Number 4 goes on the bottom, with number 5 filling up the space between 4 and 7. Putting the rings into place and getting ready to tighten up the hand press. As mentioned, I forgot that I had a 27mm socket elsewhere and so used a crescent. It still got the job done, but I’ll be buying a 27mm socket to leave in the hand press box for next time. The new ball joint, pushed into place. Now it’s time to reassemble everything, starting with putting the spindle back into place and putting the ball joint nut on. I bought this digital torque wrench a few years ago but have really only been using it for doing wheel nuts up to the required 125 Nm (as specified by Ford). I’ve been rather picky about this… because I’m a perfectionist when it comes to brakes. The wrong torque on the wheel nuts can contribute to disc rotor warping and brake shudder. Finally, I got to use the torque wrench for something else tonight by ensuring that the ball joint nut was done up to Ford’s specified 90 Nm. A photo of the ball joint nut done up, and the spindle in place. Next is the ABS sensor. The ABS sensor has a bolt with an 8mm head, so I used a ratchet spanner on that. Ratchet spanners are ideal for this sort of task - doing up a bolt quickly as it requires a lot of rotations.

The spindle came away from the car and sat on the ground. Time to start on removing the ball joint. Start by removing the rubber cover, which lifts off with a bit of force. The ball joint is full of grease. The new replacement ball joint - part number BA3395A. They retail for somewhere around $50 each, but you can do a search for that part number on eBay. I found one listing that had them for $59.95 a pair, including postage. Time to use the press to push the old ball joint out. Ring 7 has a collar on it that fits over the top of the ball joint. Ring 5 is an empty spacer that allows room for the ball joint to slide downward. I had overlooked getting a socket to fit the hand press, so ended up having a go with an old fashioned crescent. Using a socket with the extendable brace would have been much easier, but the crescent did the job. When fitting the new bush, I pushed the crescent the last few times with my foot to make sure that the ball joint was pushed fully into place. And of course, it wasn’t until I finished the entire job that I realised that I have a 27mm socket in my motorbike toolbox. Bugger. Another view of the hand press, rings and spacers that were used to remove the ball joint. Ring 7 is the one that pushes the top of the ball joint down. On one side of 7 is a collar that fits into the top of the hand press, and on the other side is a collar that fits snugly over the top of the ball joint. Another photo showing how ring 7 goes between the hand press and ball joint. Now that I’ve got the old ball joint out, you can see the splines in the remaining hole. The new ball joint also has splines on the base. I’ve tapped the new ball joint with a mallet so that the splines hold it into place.

Part 3 - How To Replace The Ball Joints If you haven’t ordered pizza yet, then now is the time to do so. I’ll start with a couple of diagrams that show what the front end is composed of. Here’s a photo of the brass rings and spacers. For replacing the lower ball joints, I’m going to use numbers 4, 5 and 7. I bought this extra long ring spanner/ratchet spanner a few months ago and am finding it to be extremely useful for anything to do with brakes and engine oil changes (ie those jobs use a 15mm spanner or socket, and require a suitable a bit of tension to undo and redo up.) This is a Sealey AK631915 Double Ring Ratchet/fixed Spanner Extra-long 15mm, which I got via mail order from England. Cost around $30 delivered. The ring spanner end is a good depth, so won’t strip a bolt head. This thing is allowing me to undo brake calliper bolts easily, and do them up tightly enough later on. Do a Google or eBay search for Sealey AK631915 to find one (I bought mine on eBay). This is what I keep in my toolbox for loosening wheel nuts. It’s an extendable wheel brace - you can get these from car accessory shops. I found a gadget that adds a ratchet effect, also from a car accessory shop. And then the socket on the end - I’m currently using 19mm wheel nuts, but almost all other Falcons will be using the usual 21mm wheel nuts. I also keep one of these wheel braces in the car for changing a flat tyre. I’ve jacked up the front of the car and removed the wheel. When jacking up the car, I’ve jacked up the entire front so that with both wheels off the ground I can turn the hub and spindle back and forth as required. This made it much easier to access certain areas. I’ve removed the disc rotor and calliper. I use a pot plant hook from a hardware shop to hang the calliper from either the upper control arm or the suspension spring. I’ve loosed the nut at the top. It turned out that my impact socket set (ie six-sided) didn’t have an 18mm socket, but a 19mm six-sided socket worked fine. Having removed the bolt. I’ve given the upper control arm a few thumps with a normal hammer. The vibrations will help the two items to come apart. A bigger hammer would be useful, but this one loosed it easily enough. The upper ball joint and spindle came loose fairly easily. Having got the top one loose, it was time to start on the bottom. I used an 8mm ratchet spanner to remove the ABS sensor so that I have better access to the ball joint nut. I used the extendable wheel brace to give me the leverage to remove the ball joint nut, which came loose quite easily (they aren’t done up particularly tight). Once the nut was loosened, I went to work with the hammer and started banging around the lower spindle area. Much to my relief, the spindle and ball joint came apart fairly easily.

Part 2 - The G &G Technics GGT-400 Hand Press Don’t know about you, but those photos motivate me to know a bit more about ball joints. My taxi has been making some squeaking sounds over the last two weeks, but it wasn’t until Friday afternoon that I could get it to a workshop. As soon as he pulled out on to the road for a test drive the mechanic said that it was one of the ball joints. He pointed out that the steering was also stiffer than usual. I also thought this, but had just been away on holiday for a few weeks driving other cars so wasn’t sure whether it was just me used to the other cars that I’d driven lately. The car went up on the hoist and the passenger side wheel had some movement in it. You can test this by pushing the wheel up and down (ie get under it and push up and down with your shoulder) - if there’s any movement then that’s the worn ball joint. This is easy enough to do on a hoist but more difficult to do at home with a jack. The mechanic had the ball joint replaced with minutes. So, if you are getting some squeaking sounds from the front end and/or the steering seems a bit stiffer than normal, then you need to get the ball joints checked immediately. I was curious what tools he used. I had read about the G & G Technics GGT-400 previously and sure enough, that’s what he had in the workshop. I decided right then to buy one as soon as possible. Ball joints aren’t expensive (around $30 each) so I would happily fit new ones on both taxis every six months if I could. That would be excessive, but I’m a tad obsessed with preventing the above mishaps. The G & G Technics GGT-400 can be found easily enough for around $400. I made some phone calls and found a Repco that had one in stock that someone ordered but didn’t pick up. The manager knew that it was dead stock and being so specialised it wouldn’t sell for a long time (if ever). She couldn’t make a loss on it, but she wasn’t fussed about making a huge profit on it either. We bounced some numbers back and forth and managed to agree on $350. Some tips on haggling: - First of all, identify the person who is authorised to negotiate. That’s the person to discuss it with. - Be polite about it. Lots of manners. Everyone thinks that haggling is a power trip that requires aggression and raised voices. Retail staff hate that crap and are more inclined to just end the conversation to get rid of you. - I figure out in advance a number that I want to pay - in this case I had the rather ambitious and slightly unrealistic figure of $300 in mind. - Explain that’s the budget that you’ve allowed for this. How close to that price can you get? - With the right amount of tact and charisma (ie decisive, but still a bit of sucking up) it’s surprising what you can get out of people. - In this case, she hinted what the cost price was. $330 wasn’t going to do it either. Stuff it, I’ve made the decision to buy one of these things so we agreed on the $350. - When I haggle on things, I do it to buy the item. Not to waste any time or try the person out. I conduct the negotiation, make the agreement and then go buy the thing immediately. Web site link - G &G Technics GGT-400: http://www.ggtechnics.com.au/products/ggt_400/mini_press_series_400_portable_hand_press/ Instructions: http://www.ggtechnics.com.au/products/ggt_400/mini_press_series_400_portable_hand_press/GGT_400_instructions.pdf A diagram showing what comes in the box. Photos of mine: Someone is currently selling them on eBay for $399 delivered: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/150951261864 Or, look up their eBay store at: http://stores.ebay.com.au/partszoos

Part 1 - Why Replace Them? I’m going to make this the one-stop-shop thread for replacing ball joints, so I’ll start by reposting some previous stuff so that everything is in the one thread. This is going to take a while, so go clear the bladder and bowel, tell the missus that you’ll gone for a few days, get your favourite pizza shop menu and strap yourself into your favourite chair. I had a close call with a worn ball joint a couple of days ago, so am going to ramble on about these things for a bit. If you aren’t familiar with ball joints and have a Falcon then you need to be aware of this stuff. Ball joints are part of the front end suspension area. They are part of the stuff that holds the front wheel on. Which means when a ball joint wears out and fails then things are going to get a tad tricky. There is an upper and lower ball joint on each side of an AU/BA/BF Falcon. It’s probably the same for previous Falcons - look it up. One of the lower ball joints on my girlfriend’s taxi let go last year, but luckily she was stationary. It just went click and the front end collapsed. This also caused some minor damage to the front fender panel. Deb was extremely lucky - these things normally let go when the car is moving. That’s when the real fun happens, as I found out with an AU Falcon back in early 2009. I was cruising along at 85km/h with myself and four other guys in the car. The ball joint let go at that speed, the passenger side of the car collapsed and the whole lot slid along the road. It freaked the hell out of me at the time but I kept both hands held tightly onto the steering wheel - I figured as long as the car stayed on the bitumen and didn’t drift into the kerbing on either side of the road then we’d be ok. By the time the car dropped to 60km/h I figured that we weren’t all going to hospital that night. Luckily, the car kept going in a straight line and no-one was harmed. It did leave a very impressive long skid mark on the road which was there for weeks afterward. This was at about 3:30am on a Wednesday night. The car was back on the road on Friday, a day and a half later. These days, I know a lot more about ball joints and how this failed. In this case, it was a lack of maintenance (I didn’t own that car). Now that I’ve got my own taxi, and my girlfriend has hers, I’m a lot more interested in knowing how to replace these on my own and ensure that this doesn’t happen again. Here are some photos that I took with an old Nokia phone and a torch at the time - I’ve never published these before because I’ve never been able to do a decent Photoshop job on removing certain logos and signage. These will have to do for now:

The remains of the replacement actuator, with the broken plastic shaft from the original one. Soon to be in the bin. Then it was time to put back the three bolts that hold the actuator mechanism in place. The door trim is attached to the door with a bunch of plastic press-studs. Three of them are broken off on this trim, but that’s not a problem. The cable from the actuator to the interior door handle needs to be in its correct place before pushing the door trim back on. The cables for the mirror and window switches also have to be plugged back into the window switch on the door trim before pushing the trim back on. Then it was time to put the various screws back in place. For this job, I bought a complete replacement actuator because I didn’t want to stuff around with pulling one apart. However, it turned out to be easy enough to do, and if I was going to do it again then I would be more inclined to buy a new plastic shaft on its own. Being new, it would have less chance of breaking in the immediate future.

Problem time - the electrical connection on the replacement actuator was different to the original one, meaning that it can’t just be swapped over. This meant pulling apart the replacement one to extract the required plastic shaft. There are four screws to be removed. Once the casing half comes off we can see the electric motor and plastic shaft. I then took the old one apart, revealing the broken plastic shaft. This is common in BA Falcons, and happens in BFs sometimes as well. I initially wasn’t able to put the casing half back on. Turned out that I didn’t have the spring back in properly. A photo showing the broken shaft. The electric motor rotates a cog, which then rotates the plastic shaft. This moves a notch up and down, which connects into another piece of plastic that controls the door locks. Once I had the original actuator back in one piece (with the replacement shaft correctly in place), it was time to reassemble the door. The rod for the door handle slides in and then the clip rotates down to clip over it. The rod for the key lock easily clips in sideways. Make sure that the rod for the door handle is also connected to the door lock mechanism (ie red plastic area). It’s easier to make sure that this end is connected first before connecting the door handle end.

I’ve been doing some basic repairs on a BA Falcon wagon this week and one of the things to sort out was the lack of central locking. BA and BF Falcons are known for having the central locking fail. This is caused by a broken plastic shaft in one of the door locking mechanisms. I started by removing the interior door handle. There is a screw that is covered by a small piece of plastic. I removed that plastic by levering it out with a small flat blade screwdriver. Note: On this car (BA) the screws are Philips head. For some reason, Ford switched to Torx T25 head screws for the BF. Once the screw is removed the door handle is easy to remove. I then removed the plastic at the front of the door. This just unclips. For some reason, this car was missing one of the clips. There is a total of seven screws to remove before the door trim comes off - the arrows mark the locations. As mentioned, on a BA Falcon they will be Phillips head, but will be Torx T25 on a BF Falcon. The plastic insert in the door handle comes out - I removed this one by carefully jamming a small flat blade screwdriver into one end and then levering it out. Once the seven screws are removed the door trim will come away from the door, but this will require a bit of force as the trim is held to the door with plastic clips. To get the door trim to come completely away from the door, disconnect the mirror adjuster cable and the electric window cable. The locking actuator is held in place by three bolts with Torx T30 heads. Note: wind the window up before doing this - you’ll need full access to the internals of the door later on. The actuator is attached to the inside of the door with three bolts, which need to be removed from the door. I bought a complete actuator so that I could easily swap it over with the old one. Then it’s time to disconnect the various rods so that the actuator can be removed. Once everything has been disconnected, the actuator can be removed from the door.

Part 9 Tonight I had another go at removing a front bush that has previously defeated me. Previously, I had tried to push a front bush out with the press. But applying pressure from the wrong angle ended up bending the outer casing of the bush so that it was unable to slide through the control arm. This meant that I was going to have to cut off the outer end of the bush and push it through from the other direction. It was time to see if the Ryobi reciprocal saw was going to be any use for this. Much to my delight, the saw cut through the bush quite easily. This could have been done with a hacksaw, but someone would have to be very fit and patient to do this (I am neither of these). The metal bit in the centre was a bit of work, but the saw cut through it without major drama. The outer shell of the bush was easy to cut through. Now that I had the outer end cut away, it was time to see if I could push the bush through the control arm. This was frustrating, as the rounded edges of the control arm kept pushing the iron plates apart. A large g-clamp would have been ideal for keeping the iron plates pushed against the bush. However, once I got things lined up, the bush started to push through very easily. I made sure not to keep pushing once the bush had gone through enough to touch the cross beam of the press. I set up another layer of plates and had more drama with the control arm pushing the plates apart. This was getting extremely frustrating as I knew that I would finally have that bush removed if I could keep the iron plates in place long enough. Finally everything held together for a few seconds and I was able to resume pushing the bush through. Success! Then it was time to remove the rear bush. Repco had a sale on 6,000kg bottle jacks for $19.99 last week so I bought one. I used the press to hold the control arm in place, including doing so in such a way that the arm couldn’t bend outward once the bottle jack started putting pressure on the bush. Instead of messing around with the small spacers, I used one of the punches from the SuperCheap Auto kit. It all lined up correctly and the bush slid out very easily. When it comes time to put new bushes in I’ll check the control arm against some others that I have here to ensure that I haven’t previously bent it.

Part 8 Last night I finally replaced the control arms on my taxi. With the crossmember bolts, the bottom part of the bolt is only there to assist Ford with assembling the car at the factory. A mechanic has previously cut off the bottom on one of the bolts to make it easier to get the control arms in and out. This has only been done on one side of my car, and I’ll be getting the angle grinder or reciprocal saw out and cutting the matching bolt short on the other side the next time I am removing control arms from my car. Unfortunately it was too late at night for me to make noise with the grinder or saw, so it will have to be next time. On the other side, I removed the nuts and let the crossmember hang as low as possible. This made it much easier to slide the old control arm out. I had trouble getting the replacement arms back into the car. On one side, I used a crowbar to push the arm inward and a mallet underneath to control the height. Stuff-up: I had major problems with getting the first arm back in. It just wouldn’t go in, and then I realised that early on in this project I had been trying to push the old bushes out with a bottle jack. Luckily, I had bought a spare set of lower arms last week, and compared them to the arms that I was trying to fit. Sure enough, my replacement arms were out by about 2cm on one side and 1cm on the other side. I considered pushing the bushes and ball joints out of these arms and putting everything into my spare set, but decided to try bending the arms with the press. Once I got each arm to the same width as my spare set I put them in the car. I’ll be checking with a suspension place on Monday to see if they think that the control arms will retain their strength. I’ll try using a bottle jack again next time, but will be making sure that the control arms are kept in the right shape by using the press to stop them from pushing outward. I have also bought a Ryobi reciprocal saw to use if I end up having to cut the old bushes out next time. I managed to get a new one on eBay for $45, and I’ve already got the required batteries and charger with my Ryobi drill. Doing the job this time took me 3 hours and 20 minutes. I was hoping to get it close to 2 hours, but took a few photos, cleaned the two wheels, cleaned the corrosion from the disc rotors and bearing hub plates and had trouble with the arms not going back in the car. The good news is that the very slight trace of brake shudder that has been there since a recent tyre change has gone (ie cleaning off the corrosion and using a torque wrench to ensure consistent tightness on the wheel nuts). The test drive was a success. I drove around for 35km and the car tracked perfectly straight. I’ve got it booked in for a wheel alignment next week, so it will be interesting to see how close the alignment is to being correct.

Part 7 Having finally removed the bushes from the second control arm (ie the first one was done a couple of weeks ago) it was finally time to push the new bushes in. I started by lining up the front bush and tapping it in with a mallet so that it would stay in its correct place. Then I put that end of the control arm over a bearing shell (in the foreground in the photo), and then used another bearing shell and a metal spacer to start to push the bush in. Rather than push the bush through the bearing shell to the point of breaking it like I did previously, I backed off as soon as I felt the pressure build up when pumping the press (ie as soon as the bush was poking out the other side of the control arm and starting to push the bearing shell apart in the middle). I then set up some iron plates to hold the control arm up while I pushed the bush through. This took some co-ordination - a third hand would definitely be useful here. I’ll get some spacers custom made later on to make this easier. I wasn’t sure how much pressure to put on the bush, so settled for a very mild seven ton. This was enough to ensure that the bush was pushed in properly, but without bending anything. I asked two different suspension places what they use for lubricant when pushing bushes in. One place said that they use silicon spray and the other place said that they don’t use anything at all. After the dramas that I’ve had with pushing out the front bushes, I wanted to make it a little bit easier next time. I used a can of Wurth Silicon Spray to spray silicon on the bush and in the control arm hole before pushing each bush in. The can is on the left side of the photo. The wider new press is excellent for pushing in the rear bush. Unlike the first press, I didn’t have to stuff around with different spacers and plates to push the bush in. Just put the control arm sideways and push the bush in. As with the front bush, I started with just having the control arm over an iron plate and then putting a spacer under the arm once the bush pushed through to the other side. With the rear bush, I only went to a very mild four ton of pressure. The shock absorber mount bush was extremely easy. I pushed it through a little bit too much to ensure that the rubber collar had poked out on the other side, and then tapped the other side back over with a hammer. The bush was then centred properly. Finally, I now had two completed control arms! What a nightmare - trying to figure all of this out almost entirely on my own has been quite a challenge, but I’ve finally got some techniques figured out. The first press came with quite a bundle of various metal offcuts that I’ve been using for spacers. I got the bearing shells from a Ford dealer workshop and bought the press kit from Supercheap Auto. If you buy a press then it would be worth looking around at some metal fabrication places to see what rubbish pieces you can get to build up a collection. I bought a large, flat plastic tub from Bunnings to put this stuff into, and the tub now sits on a small trolley next to the press. Pushing the old bushes out and the new ones in has been very clumsy and cumbersome. It’s been a lot more frustrating than I expected, and I’m going to try and make this job easier by getting some spacers custom made in the near future. I haven’t painted the control arms this time, but will probably do so next time (ie before I push the old bushes out, so that wet paint doesn’t go into the bush holes). I asked a suspension place what paint they use and they said VHT Rollbar & Chassis Paint. This paint is available in either Gloss Black or Satin Black. http://www.vhtpaint.com/products/rollbarchassis/

Part 6 Tonight I had a go at pushing the front bush out on the other arm, but with the correct diameter spacer this time. The bush started pushing through as soon as I put enough pressure on it with the bottle jack. The metal spacer is the one that I should have used the first time, but didn’t because it is hollow on the inside and needs a metal plate at the base of it. Finally, the front bush on this arm was fully pushed out. I then turned the control arm over to push out the rear bush. Also, the bottle jack only works when facing the correct way up. I made sure to select a spacer that was a suitable diameter - wide enough to push on the outer metal ring on the bush, but narrow enough to fit through the control arm. The bush pushed out very easily. I had now removed the two main bushes from the control arm. Getting somewhere! I used one of the punches from the SuperCheap Auto kit to easily push out the suspension mount bush. At last, I ended up with a control arm with the three bushes removed. The ball joint will be staying because it’s only a few weeks old. I’ll be pushing in new Ford bushes and fitting this arm to my taxi.

Part 5 It finally occurred to me how to push the front bush out without bending the control arm - use the press to prevent the outer ends of the control arm from pushing outward. Finally, a solution! I put the bottle jack into place and started pumping. My joy was short lived - the bottle jack cracked as soon as I put some pressure on the bush. I took the bottle jack back to the shop that I bought it from, and swapped it for another of their display jacks. This one worked much better, and I was able to make a proper attempt at pushing the front bush out. I had to use a couple of metal spacers to fill the gap between the control arm bush and how far the jack extends. However, I made a stuff-up. Trying to juggle the two metal spacers at the top of the bottle jack was proving too difficult with one pair of hands, so I went back to one spacer. But I used one that was too wide and I didn’t realise this until much later. This meant that I could only push the bottom of the bush as far as where the control arm started. I didn’t notice this because I’m tall and didn’t look under the arm to ensure that the spacer would fit through. I gave up on that arm for the time being and returned to the previous arm. The bush on this arm wasn’t going to push through, as it was bent outward at the bottom. I used the press as a vice to hold the control in place so that I could hacksaw the outer end off. I made a start on hacksawing but ran out of time and had other things to do. I’ve ordered a reciprocal saw to assist with cutting bushes out if and when required in the future, and will attack this bush when the saw arrives. I’m probably going to have to saw both ends off the bush, and then cut through the bush outer metal ring. I don’t have the patience to do that with a hacksaw, hence the electric reciprocal saw that I’ve ordered.

I bought a crash-damaged BA XR6 Turbo ute a few weeks ago that was also clunking when reversing. Some searching on here and other Falcon forums indicated that the common cause was the u-bolt nuts being too loose. Quite common, apparently. Ford's recommendation is to do them up to a tightness of 45Nm. However, with my ute, the cause was a bent axle. Not an easy thing to find, but I got lucky and found one at a performance diff place (ie a good place to start if your axle is bent). Some bent axles can be straightened. Mine was well and truly stuffed. Check the u-bolt nuts first. To check the axle, I'm guessing that you would need to jack up the back of the car, remove the wheels, disc rotors and calipers, and see if the axle plate wobbles when it turns (ie start the car and have the engine turn the axles over). Or, remove the axle and use a lathe to rotate and check it (safer, but more hassle to set up). With replacing the axle, I used my hydraulic press to push out the wheel studs on the old axle and to push them in on the replacement one. A bit of stuffing around. When putting the new bearings on a replacement axle, take the time to make sure that you've got everything in the correct order (ABS disc, seal, bearing around the correct way and then the collar). Edit: Turns out that I've already posted a thread about replacing rear axle bearings. Plenty of photos, etc. http://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/topic/88405-photo-essay-babf-ute-wagon-rear-axle-bearing-replacement

Depends on their breaking point.

Yep, that's the standard boring caliper that has been painted to look like the 325mm one. This is the real thing: You can see the different indents - the 325mm caliper has the one indent above the PBR logo, whereas the standard caliper has the two indents - one either side of where the logo is/would normally go. I had a close call a few years ago. Was buying some 325mm calipers that had come off a Craig Lowndes ute but double checked with some photos just before handing over the money. Turned out that they were standard calipers, painted the same way as yours. Photo of the standard caliper - you can see the two indents instead of the one centre one:

Replacing the o-ring requires cutting into the end nut. Difficult General consensus is to replace the entire hose. There is this option: http://autowholesalesaustralia.com.au/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=266 Haven't tried that myself. I replaced the steering hose in girlfriend's taxi a few weeks ago. Paid $70 for an aftermarket one at a taxi workshop.

Jack up each corner/end of the car. Remove each wheel and have a look around. If it's a leak in a brake line somewhere then you'll see it. Might be something as simple as a copper washer between the brake line and caliper.

Fitted Roadsafe complete lower control arms to girlfriend's taxi back in April. 38,000km later and there was movement in both ball joints. Replaced them both tonight with Ford ones.

Depends if there is any corrosion in the water pump, where that pipe goes into. Girlfriend's taxi had a leak there on Thursday night. Took me all night to replace the pump. The bolts are hard to get to because the pulley is too big and partially blocks access to the bolts. Scraping the old gasket off is difficult because you can't see parts of where the pump goes. Getting the new pump back is a nightmare because you have to line up the four bolts and then the pipe at the same time. Without the gasket falling backward off the bolts.

Old thread, but that's the back of the water pump. There's an o-ring in there, which has probably perished. Water pump = *beep* of a thing to replace. You can get cheap ones off eBay for around $20 plus postage.

What a distaster. Woke up relatively early (after night shift). Goody. But there was an advert for some BA GT brakes in Rockingham (ie the 325mm stuff). Way too good to pass up on, so I had to go buy them (paid $100). Figured I’d go there and then back to the Maintenance Day after that. Loaded up the XR6 Turbo ute. Tools, a few parts and all sorts of stuff. Very organised, except that I was going to replace the front upper control arms and hadn’t put the new bushes in. Figured that would only take a few minutes with the hydraulic press, but they didn’t want to slide in. Wasted another 40 minutes getting that sorted. Went from running on time to running way late. Finally, it was time to go. Sat at the computer to get a Temporary Movement Permit (car is unlicensed). Tried four times, and got a, “Your payment was not able to be processed. Please call 13 11 56 and one of our contact centre staff can assist you”. It’s Sunday; there’re not open. Which means that the XR6T won’t be leaving the driveway. Huge amounts of frustration. Lots of rage. Was looking forward to today. Ah well, at least I got a set of BA GT/BA Premium/325mm front brakes for almost nothing.

Why not fly over and have a look in person? It depends on the cost of the flight. I've brought cars back from Sydney twice this year. It's cost me $200 for a Tiger Air ticket to Sydney each time, but that was late on a Sunday night. Flying over gives you the chance to see the car in person, and then pay for it while you're actually with the seller (eg bank transfer). If you're really keen then fly out Friday night and drive the car back.

Got home early - 3:20am instead of the usual 4:30-5am. Finished replacing the shackle bushes on the XR6 Turbo ute. Couldn't finish on Thursday because one of the bolt threads was stuffed. Very, very, very easy job to do, so stuff it, did the same job on the taxi (was going to do it next week). Managed to finish just as the day driver turned up. Still pondering buying a smashed FPV at auction so that I can grab the Brembo brakes off it. Buy wreck, remove brakes and re-sell wreck. Anyone wanna buy the rest of a very smashed up 2008 GT-P?