I would like to adjust the inner ball joints on the tie rods of the steering
rack on my MGA. This is supposed to be a fairly trivial task: remove gaiter
seal, unbend locking metal cap, unscrew ball cap from ball cup, remove or
adjust shims, reassemble reverse of dissassembly.
The problem comes with removal of the ball cap from the ball cup. An
appropriate wrench for the ball cup would be a spanner with a round hole and
two key tabs to match the slots in the sides of the ball cup. An appropriate
wrench for the ball cap would be a spanner with two protruding parallel pins
to mate with the holes in the flat surface of the ball cap. I find that the
parts are so tight that when I try wrenching them apart I always break the
pins on my home made ball cap wrench. The last attempt involved pins made
from hardened and tempered drill rod, broke those too!
I hesitate to take a torch to these parts, not wanting to damage the
percision machined threads and ground spherical surfaces. But I am
determined to adjust out the bit of clearance developed here after 200,000
miles. Anyone got any good ideas?
Barney Gaylord -- 1958 MGA
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