Had an old rack that I took the inter ball joint out of. Attempted to
separate the ball cover from the front plate. Not possibly in this case. Put
it in a LARGE vise, heated it bright red and put a LARGER pipe wrench on it
trying to get it off. This was after making tool out of drill bit stock to
hold that one flat piece. You guess it. Broke....It would NOT come apart.
Gave up and am just going to put on different rods from a third
rack....Mannn.....Is it by any chance a left handed thread? Tried both ways
but.....Never seen anything like it. I can always get stuff apart, even if I
tear it up doing it. In this case I tore it up and STILL did not get it
apart. Whipped, Defeated...I move on to the next problem..the hidden oil
leak. Grin...
----- Original Message -----
From: Barney Gaylord <barneymg@ntsource.com>
To: Dean Crowley <dcdccccckc@worldnet.att.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 1999 12:10 AM
Subject: Re: mga ball joints.
> Dean,
>
> At 08:17 PM 8/10/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >Can you replace the inter tie rod with the rack in the car?
>
> Theoretically yes, but only if you can get the @#$%^& inner ball joint nut
> to unscrew. On the MGA it wants a couple of special wrenches. One would
> be a flat wrench with two parallel pins to engage two holes in the back
> surface of the inner half of the socket. Other would be a ring wrench
with
> two pins extending inwards from opposite sides to engage slots in the
sides
> of the acorn nut (outer half lf the socket). I've made both special
> wrenches, and I've broken both, more than once. I've given up and put it
> all back together at least twice, generally in order to drive it again the
> next day. Maybe this winter when it can be laid up fow at least a week
> I'll take the whole assembly out of the car and onto the bench for better
> access. Then I may have to use the blue wrench on it to get it apart, and
> if I screw anything up I'll have time to procure new parts as necessary.
>
> >Any tips on how to shim this up ....
>
> The MGA has shims between the two halves of the inner ball joint socket.
> The idea is to undo a lock tab washer, unscrew the acorn nut,
remove/adjust
> shims as necessary to get rid of most of the clearance but not so tight as
> to make the ball joint sieze up when you reassemble it. MGA shims are
> available in .003, .005, and .010 inch thicknesses. Different
combinations
> of these can build stacks of 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18,
> etc, you get the idea. My MGB parts catalog doesn't show shims, so I
> dunno, never been there, not done that. If no shims, then you might
> possible grind a few thou off of one surface to reduce the space inside
the
> socket. Lots of luck. Lemmeno how you make out.
>
> Regards,
>
> Barney
>
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