TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

likely because the thread wasn’t about stock suspension arms, no malarkey …
.

Cactus

I’m with Team in that this thread was Malarky…. But…

It’s still up, and a search sends me here so I have questions…. Let’s talk Ball joints and Control arms.

My Rx-8 is a 2004 and has been in CA for most of its life, and now is in the AZ dessert. It’s ball joint boots have started to fall apart and I have started work on fixing them. The links I have worked on so far appear to be the original equipment. The car seems to drive fine, I don’t hear any sort of clunks or notice any sort of weird behavior in cornering. I checked the wheels for play and nothing seemed loose or clunked. The car has 128,000 mi. on it.
I have removed the two upper links and removed the boots the grease was clean and the joints moved smoothly with some resistance. To me it seems like cleaning the grease off and applying new grease and a new boot and they should be good to go. The bottom trailing link, the one the sway bar attaches to has an eccentric bolt for alignment so I didn’t remove it. After freeing the ball joint from the hub and sway bar I thought that thought this link would move freely, it doesn’t. It acts like it’s spring loaded, which in a sense it is, because the rubber bushing in the link seems to be bonded to the ring and the tube.
So is this the way the links are supposed to work? It would seem that this would cause wear on the rubber bushing. The stuff I have read is specific that the link end bolts have to be torqued when the car is on the ground in a settled /neutral position. So I guess that the rubber in a at rest position is not under much strain and really doesn’t go through a lot of stress because most of the time our cars are in a mid stroke position. So is this how the links supposed to work? When I can get back to my laptop I will post some pics and add a few more questions/ observations .

neophai

All the suspension arms will seem "spring-loaded" while the bolts are tight; the tight bolts hold the bushing in place and then it flexes (rather than slip in place) to allow for movement. This is normal. Loosen the bolts and you'll find they move more freely. This is why you're supposed to torque them down when they're in a neutral position, rather than at extension.

And if there's no noise and no play, then I'd say they're still good! Keep driving on them until that changes.

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

yes, it’s exactly how they work and they work extremely well when in good condition; the best OEM style you can have just short of full heim joints imo. Which is exactly why you’ll find numerous posts on here from me telling people replacing them with urethane aftermarket bushings is a mistake.

I highly recommend either OE bushings just short of the next and only step up; the highest quality heim joints.
.

Cactus

So here is one of the links. The crack in the rubber seems to be very shallow, a pick seems to only go in a couple of mm so I guess is is superficial. When they are torqued to spec there is a substantial resistance to pushing down as well as sideways. After doing this there doesn't seem to be any increase in the size of the fracture. Until I have a new unit to compare them to or somebody explains why not, I guess they are good to go.
Actually pretty impressed at he durability of these links, they are almost 20yr old, and really the only thing they needed was some new boots and clean grease.

Even with a cracked boot grease seems pretty good. So wipe it down and new grease and boot.

Not Perfect but still has resistance and and no deep scars or pitting.