I'm just about ready to head over and press in the new ball joint for the VW pan based 914 "project" . . . don't even ask, and had a question that seems pretty easy, 'cept I haven't got a clue.
Which way are the ball joints installed? Should they have more movement front to rear or side to side or on a forty five degree angle? I gathered up several sets of trailings arms, removed the old joints, cleaned blasted and painted them up ready for assembly and noticed that the bores where the ball joints install is smooth.
However . . . before pressing out the joints I found that all of the joints were orientated differently. Some had more fore and aft movement, others side to side, some were just in there seemingly kitty-cornered. If you remove the boot from a VW ball joint, you can see a definite slot that the shaft moves in. Some side to side play in the slot, but a discernible back and forth pathway for the threaded shaft to move in. If they were forced to move in a direction counter to the direction of the slot, there would be MAJOR restriction and eventual failure.
SO! Which way IS IT? From what I've seen folks just press them in and charge the customer, but after seeing that they were made to move in one direction more freely than another, and the front suspension seems to do the same, I need so help here. Obviously, were they installed randomly there would be some serious binding/restriction in the front suspension travel.
A link would be good, not on installation but rather concerning orientation. Some empirical info, a word or two from someone whose actually run into this and managed the install them correctly would be great. If anyone has any trailing arms with ball joints installed and could check the movement of the shaft pokin' out of the boot, that woud be kinda neat too.
I totally need some help here ! !
Thanks,
TC
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