The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Dear All
Purchased an upper balljoint from valisandy3500 via ebay. It become floppy after 6 months and "failed" my annual "notMOT" - with wandering steering. I cantacted him and he has given me a partial refund and discount on future purchases .
So "gently recommended" is a fair comment, I think
toryroger,

To be fair to your supplier such garbage suspension parts are not unusual and you get the same problem with parts for modern cars with a far larger potential spares market.

The classic response from suppliers is buyers won't pay a realistic prices for parts, which drives quality through the floor. The problem with that argument is, in my experience, more expensive doesn't guarantee quality.

I will give an example, we bought an expensive slave cylinder for my father's Rover 75. It is a concentric cylinder, so you don't want that will fail because it is a nightmare to get at it. The supplier assured us this expensive part was top quality, they had spent money on it to make sure it was robust. Fitted it and soon got bearing noise. The supplier acted shocked, till it failed, at which point they cheerfully admitted it was a duff part and they had lots of failures. They gave us some money back but it in noway covered the cost of the work of replacing it.

Sorry about the rant but the poor quality of car parts is one of my pet peeves. We don't even buy cheap anyone but it doesn't seem to mater what you do, avoiding garbage parts is simply a lottery.

So I need to keep the old balljpints when I take my Toledo suspension apart. They are all good, though would benefit from new rubbers and probably a bit of a regrease.
I wonder how many places are making the new balljoints. If only 1 supplier the news is not good.

Luckily I never threw away such suspension parts and bought a lot of old stock over the years.

BUT, every balljoint will get a grease nipple as most have no grease left or like most new ones, just don't have any in it when new.

Greasing the current new ones will make these longer lasting.

Jeroen

Early Dolomites came with repairable upper balljoints, these are recognisable because they have grease nipples in them. If you have such balljoints, SAVE THEM! I believe there are still some overhaul kits about to rebuild them!

Steve

Carledo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 24, 2022 8:53 pm Early Dolomites came with repairable upper balljoints, these are recognisable because they have grease nipples in them. If you have such balljoints, SAVE THEM! I believe there are still some overhaul kits about to rebuild them!

Steve

I bought a rebuild kit for my ball joint, but found they were not right even with all the shims fitted

I have no doubt that some of the reproduction parts are poor quality but I also think that the state of our roads is a significant cause of premature suspension component failure.

I run quite a few vans and trucks for my business and at every MOT they need bushes, or ball-joints, or springs. Often these are genuine parts that are failing too.

I have a handful or the repairable type of upper balljoint and will try soon to track down some OE repair kits. I've had a few duff new ones lately including one that was effectively seized solid out of the box.

If I can't get quality of new stock maybe i'll have more luck doing it myself!

Steve

I looked at having repair kits remanufactured a few years back, but then discovered Fitchetts had health stock of them

The FWD range also had geasable lower BJs, which fit all the dolomite range ( its only the upper joints that are different before someone claims they don't fit)