Help Please.... Mot Failure

[Mike84]

Hi,

I've not been on here for ages, mainly because I sold my previous 406, i have now ventured into 406 ownership once more. Infact, i have bought my old 406 back from the person i sold it too!!

Anyway, its not been used for 6 months or so and the MOT has well and truly expired. I have took it for a MOT today and it has failed (unsuprisingly). The failures are mainly on the suspension parts. Im a pretty competant DIYer so am willing to give the repairs ago myself as long as they are not to complicated. Im after some advise/pointers on the repairs.

The failure points are as follows

Offside front anti roll bar linkage has excessive play in the ball joint
Offside rear tie rod/bar has play in a ball joint
Nearside & Offside Macphearson strut upper support bearing is stiff in operation

Any help / advise greatly accepted.

Mike

[musso2010]

Hi,

I've not been on here for ages, mainly because I sold my previous 406, i have now ventured into 406 ownership once more. Infact, i have bought my old 406 back from the person i sold it too!!

Anyway, its not been used for 6 months or so and the MOT has well and truly expired. I have took it for a MOT today and it has failed (unsuprisingly). The failures are mainly on the suspension parts. Im a pretty competant DIYer so am willing to give the repairs ago myself as long as they are not to complicated. Im after some advise/pointers on the repairs.

The failure points are as follows

Offside front anti roll bar linkage has excessive play in the ball joint
Offside rear tie rod/bar has play in a ball joint
Nearside & Offside Macphearson strut upper support bearing is stiff in operation

Any help / advise greatly accepted.

Mike

Pretty common for this time of year. Mine failed on 2 of your 3. I bought all my parts off ebay, and they are pretty easily changed as long as you have the correct tools to hand and a decent set of axle stands.

Anti-roll bar links are easy, looking at about £15 plus P&P from ebay.
Tie rods are also easy, similer price to above aswell.

Sorry i cannot comment on the strut bearing though, but id imagine it may include stripping the strut down and replacing the bearing? Not overly complicated.

[HimBigChief]

I think you're look at sub £100 for all 4 components, and I'd say less than a days work, probably a mornings really. A quick thing you could try for the strut tops would be to soak them in WD40 and see if that helps at all. If not, it's a strut out job and compress the spring, whip the top mount off, replace with new one, put everything back together. At the same time as this, you may aswell replace both front droplinks as you may well end up knackering the other one when getting the strut off.

Once you've replaced all the bits you'll need to get the car 4 wheel aligned as you've played about with the toe and camber settings on the rear wheel when replacing the tie rod.

Done all the above on mine (well, I fitted lowering springs, but it's the same work) and there's nothing overly complicated or time consuming about any of it.

[diesel.weasel]

Easy Job.

Regarding the rear tie rods. Buy a new subframe cam bolt and washer from the Pug dealer. Done this job on 4 separate 406's and each time needed to change this bolt.

Good Luck

[HimBigChief]

Good point, I had to replace those on mine too.

[mjb]

When changing the front drop links soak the ball joint nuts in WD40 for a day or so before you try the job, if you can't undo one, grab an angle grinder and cut it off. Don't mess about with a saw or drill - trust me.

[teamster1975]

When changing the front drop links soak the ball joint nuts in WD40 for a day or so before you try the job, if you can't undo one, grab an angle grinder and cut it off. Don't mess about with a saw or drill - trust me.

If you can't source an angle grinder get some mole grips on the ball joint, this works well.

[Mike84]

Cheers for all this. I've got a day off next week so going to give it ago.

[stevenlizuk]

I did a strut change for the 1st time last year and it's easy if you take your time.
The scariest part was having the spring in the compressor!

The links are a doddle if you are prepared for the ball joint nuts to spin.
If they do proceed staight to cutting them off rather than trying to stabilise the ball joint enough to turn the nut off.
I've been lucky and my cam bolts came undone but were quite badly corroded.

Steve

[bangernom1cs]

HI,
Had to do mine again recently
If you get the QH arms/links with the spanner flats built in then it helps for next time.



T

[stevenlizuk]

Mine had a 4mm allen hey to stabilise them which was of no use at all

[bangernom1cs]

Bottom ball joint removal when stiff.

[img][IMG]http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff25 ... V00043.jpg[/img][/img]

[Mike84]

thanks for all the responses guys,

I have got it fixed, the top bearings freed up after some perswasion with wd40 and me driving down a very bumpy road several times and pressing up and down on the front of the car, other jobs were a piece of cake.

Car through the MOT now, so all is good.

Mike

[HimBigChief]

The cheap top mount bodge worked! Mind you, this will just be a temporary fix and you should really look at getting the top mounts changed at some point in the near future.

Anyway, glad it's all sorted for you now.