An easy ball joint job that wasn't.

I noticed Oscar had a torn ball joint boot when I was checking out the DPF arrangement the other week so ordered a pair to sort things out, this should have been a really simple job as I'd also ordered a long 40 mm socket to enable simple removal, it wasn't.

After not being able to get the socket to grip I decided due to my lack of strength and agility that it would be easier to remove the hub and take the job inside, naturally due to the old Jimby luck the driveshaft popped out and dumped a fair amount of expensive gearbox/diff oil, bugger.

I had to use the pipe wrench plus a metre extension to be strong enough to pop the joint but I did manage it. The new ball joint is in the background here.

Postmortem stuff here, I like the idea of the screw in fitting, although I'm old an frail now so life is harder. The long socket I'd bought needs either another 3 mm of depth or more length in the square drive fitting, this was only obvious after removing things and checking on the bench, hindsight is such a wonderful thing. I might weld a couple of beads on it and use it with the pipe wrench to pop the other side.

Of course I noticed doing the job that the tie-rod end on the left side also has a torn boot, so that's another job on the soon to do list, I'll wait for them to arrive before doing the RH side, then of course the alignment will be a concern, it is already despite the shop claiming it'd just been done, which brought a groan from Jimby, dunno why but I have a deep seated distrust of wheel alignments, in my mind they should never need to be touched unless the bits I'm currently doing here are played with, shops always find a reason to adjust but often folk kiss their lovely steering goodbye once it's been molested.

This ball joint was still functional and no cause for any alarm but without a functional boot it's a time bomb, and in this age a new unit costs little or no more than a new boot, and happily my time is worth nothing.

If I can have an offsider for the other side the job will be a snap.