[urq] another clunk....

[Phil Payne]

> Also, double check that the ball joint is inserted all the way into the
> bottom of the strut housing...(don't make the mistake that I did, by
> tightening the ball joint bolt with the ball joint not all the way in....IT
> WAS UGLY... :). ) It's easy to make this mistake, cause the ball joint bolt
> must slide past the groove in the ball joint, and it's possible to have the
> ball joint inserted in the strut housing with the bolt not flush with this
> groove. (This will make sense if you look at it for awhile...)

Then one day you wind up looking at a car that's "all wrong" from the front perspective.
Shoot - also from the side - case study 2 below.

You post the car up, and take a look underneath.  Usual tools - copper-headed hammer and large
pry bar.  They tell me they make screws big enough to fit the end of my pry bar.  And you poke
at the front right ball joint, 'cos it don't "look right" - and POP!

Sucker's never been secure.  The car's done at least 25k miles with the ball joint just jammed
up against the "securing" bolt.

Then there was the time I visited a fellow Audi mechanic to take him for a beer. He was
finishing up after a job, and out of sheer boredom I started sweeping the shop.  I found a
bolt on the floor with a nut on it - a typical mechanic's trick to remind him of which nut
belongs to which bolt.  I casually mentioned that it looked like a ball joint locking bolt.

Only dust, as he roared away after the customer.  I drank alone.

Case study 2:

An Audi 200 (5000) with "tyre rubbing" on some corners.  Dumb as ditchwater as I am, I lay
under the car for over half an hour before I spotted it - a right-side track control arm
fitted on the left.

--
  Phil Payne
  http://www.isham-research.com
  +44 7785 302 803