After my vertical link sheered on Friday, I had the
car towed home and disassembled the front end to have
a look-see.
For those interested, pictures of the broken vertical
link (and how bad my lawn looks in February) can be seen here:
http://www.geocities.com/growe58/vertlnk.html
Couple observations:
1- it's amazing to me just how small that piece of metal
is to absorb all those cornering forces, especially when it's
drilled out for the grease passages.
2- I've always used grease in lieu of gear lube and when I
pulled the remaining piece out of the trunnion, it was well
greased and moved easily. There was no evidence of dried
grease anywhere. Nonetheless, I will be switching to gear lube
from now on.
I'm going to replace the vertical links on both sides with
new units (assuming that TRF has them in stock!). I'm also
going to replace both trunnions; not only are they "ovalling"
where the bushes go, but it occurs to me that worn threads
may be contributing to stresses on the link.
The grease boot on the balljoint was destroyed by the wheel
thrashing about, so that's gonna have to go too.
If anyone has anything else to add, I would be most glad
to hear it.
Thanks
Greg Rowe
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