So, what's wrong with my car?

[serversurfer]

Well, the impact wrench made short work of the castle nut. The next problem I encountered was separating the ball joint from the lower control arm.

First I tried a pickle fork, supplied by AutoZone. Not wanting to destroy the boot, I wedged it between the LCA and the steering knuckle. Trouble was, as I hammered the fork in, the LCA would just raise up, creating more space between the arm and the knuckle, and eventually the fork would just pop out on the far side. AZ then provided me with a "Pitman arm puller," but it didn't quite fit over the end of the arm. Feeling very clever, I had them give me a "2/3-jaw 2-ton puller," as the arms were adjustable. Problem was, they popped off the LCA as soon as any real pressure was applied. So then I went to NAPA and got a ball joint separator, but the fork wasn't wide enough to go around the ball joint and boot.

Getting desperate, I set about finding the "official" separator shown in the Helm's manual. They're $220! Fortunately, I found someone else looking for one, and they were advised to "just use the ratchet trick."

In a nutshell, you raise the LCA with your floor jack, making a nice gap between it and the knuckle. Then you wedge the handle of a ratchet wrench in between the arm and the knuckle, and remove the jack. Then you STOMP ON THE BRAKE CALIPER!!

This forces the whole assembly down, closing the gap between the knuckle and the arm. Since the ratchet handle is now filling that gap, the pressure holding the ball joint in the arm becomes the weak link in the system, and it's the first thing to give way.

Ironically, I almost stumbled across this solution on my own when working with the pickle fork. I knew the wedge of the fork was widening the gap between the knuckle and the arm and causing the whole assembly to raise up instead of come apart, and I thought, "If only I could somehow prevent that from happening, I'm sure this would totally work." I tried pushing down on the rotor with my hands, and even went so far as to give it a few cautious taps with a rubber mallet, but being a virgin, I had no concept of the force actually required, and I didn't want to break anything.

Supposedly, if you do the ratchet trick before removing the damping fork, the coil will do most/all of the work for you, but I'd already disconnected it at that point, per the instructions in the Hayne's manual, so I didn't test that myself.

Anyway, after a quick trip to an exhaust shop to get a leak welded, my car is finally roadworthy! I have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself, having never done anything more complicated than topping up the oil and washer fluid. The only real "setbacks" I encountered were acquiring the proper tools, and I saved myself about $1,000 versus paying someone else to do the work. Now I just gotta figure out why my speedo only works intermittently.

Thanks for all of your help, gang! <3

 

[Avant Uprising]

Trial and error along with patience goes along way. This is a a good stepping stone the hardest thing is starting somethin you have never done before. Job well done my friend. As far as the speedo goes its prob a sensor if its not cable controlled. Its been awhile and google it and find where it is on the tranny.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk

 

[serversurfer]

The Helm's manual shows a speed sensor, mounted near the FL hub. I didn't notice it before, but I wasn't really looking for it either. I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

Looks like they can be had on Amazon for about $25 shipped, so that's not too bad.

 

[serversurfer]

Well, I took her out for a 250mi shakedown cruise, and none of the wheels fell off, so I guess I did an acceptable job.

While driving around, I got to wondering how speedometers actually work. Turns out that mine functions most of the time, and I was curious as to whether it was giving me accurate information, mostly because it was only semi-functional, and partly because the car doesn't have the stock wheels. Doesn't it measure wheel RPM? If so, doesn't that mean that changing the wheel circumference would alter the readings? Assuming that's the case, how does one recalibrate for that?

Anyway, I wanted to test to see if it was giving me accurate readings. Since I didn't have anyone to pace me, I hit upon the idea of comparing the trip odometer to the mile markers. Over the course of 40 miles, the variance was less than a tenth of a mile, so I figured that if the distance was being measured that accurately, the speed must be as well. Reasonable?

Here's the interesting part though. When I reset the trip odometer, the measured speed immediately dropped to 0 MPH. It stayed like that for 20-30s, then it bounced erratically for another 20-30s, and then resumed normal functioning. When I reset it again a couple miles later, the speedometer was unaffected. So does that indicate that the problem is actually in the gauge rather than the speed sensor? FWIW, the odometers don't work when the speedometer isn't working, but that strikes me as expected.