BXProject

Dammit, the St Tropez failed it MOT yesterday.

O/S track rod end + N/S lower ball joint + Welding (he poked a hole i didnt even know about and ignored the one i was worried on.

Anyway, lower ball joints, possible without the special tool?

I cant get tool locally at all.

Anyone close by got one?

all thoughts welcomed, off to weld the big fucking hole in it now.

Do you need the tool today? As there's one on eBay for around a tenner.

thanks mat, that will do nicely

It's amazing what stuff you can find on eBay really, from the commercial sellers. I've just bought some M7 bolts for £1.20, and you'd think there wouldn't be enough of a market for them to keep listing them! I'd tried the local farming suppliers (nearest thing to engineering supplies round here) and got some blank looks - I think they've just started to stock these new fangled metric sizes...

What's the 7 mill for Mat. They are a non standard size and little used.

Same with sunk heads. Most places, except proper engineers suppliers, don;t carry them, although you can get them from screwfix.

7mm allen keys are also fairly rare. Unless you have a Fraud

XU sump (IIRC!) Some time ago I swapped the sump on the 205 to replace the cracked BX sump. I had a spare steel XUD sump to put on the 205 16v engine and 2 sets of fixings, but 3 of them were bolts not set screws (And much longer as they screwed through the thicker area around the web of the A/C compressor mounts. Hence I was 3 short from the 205, and 'tis weeping slightly. Was only meant to be a temporary job but that was 18 months ago...
7mm allen key...I remember struggling to find one a few years ago changing the front brake pads on mate's VW Polo.

I might get one of them BJ tools myself actually, although I can't feel any play in 'em one gaiter doesn't look too clever - if only you could just buy the rubbers! I'm toying with the idea of putting a grease nipple on a replacement, just dunno whether I'd damage anything if I drilled too far?

I had forgotten VW use the same caliper??? I have the Ford tool. It's just a 7mil Allen key with a long handle on it.

I've fitted grease nipples to these joints Mat. the ball is quite hard so you won't do any damage.
However you need to drill upwards so all the swarf drops out and doesn't go inside, when you tap it, stick vaseline down the hole first ( your not tapping full depth anyway) then suck it out, (I used a bike pump.) and fit the nipple.

Philhod wrote: Same with sunk heads. Most places, except proper engineers suppliers, don;t carry them

If you venture down to Lidl, they are currently selling boxes of the wood variety in different sizes and lengths. Each box also contains 2 of the needed torx bit in the lid of the box as well!

Yes but I was meaning 7 mil allens for m/c screws, not this modern shit they've made their own made up codes for. T14, T40, etc. What's that all about then, it doesn't seem to have any correalation to the actual size.

I don't need any wood stuff at the mo, when I rearranged the workshop to make room for the bike build, I "found" absolutely loads of wood screws coach bolts and the like, that are now all neatly boxed up in sizes (roughly)

Philhod wrote: Yes but......not this modern shit they've made their own made up codes for. T14, T40, etc. What's that all about then, it doesn't seem to have any correalation to the actual size.

This might help get your head around it:
http://www.wihatools.com/Marketing/torxspec.htm

Basically for a given screw diameter you can have a choice of different head styles which will dictate the tool size. Choice is presumably made not just on style but the value to which you want to "torque" it to! Theres more surface interaction on a torx bit, size for size than with Allen so it can be torqued more and is less likely to round off like Allen, especially on the smaller sizes.

In short, no you dont need the special tool, although it can make life easier.
A big decent blunt cold chisel and a fucking large hammer will 99 times from 100 do the job admirably.
As such, I've changed quite literally hundreds of the bloody things over the years, and I dont have the special tool.
Although, since they are cheap as a shag with a dead bird on the bay, I may treat myself!

only £2.50 postage. I bagsied one.

Shit, there'll be none left for me at this rate!

Thanks WTG. I have a zeus book with all this info in but having it on a chart like that has done 2 things.
One. I can now see the correalation between sizes now on all the stuff except the internal or sunk heads, where the numbers do not match to anything.
They are just a code, to refer to a torque rating.
On the others the T rating is always the next size up.
Oh and they are obviously American, as they quote point to point dimensions whereas the correct term is pitch.
So perhaps that last puts it into perspective.

Not wanting to be left out I've splashed the cash on the tool!

I had to do some work on a Vauxhall Omega the other day, not content to make everyone buy Torx kits this had a 12 point spline drive on the rear hub bolts - more expense! Did a bit of Googling and found this on Wikipedia, never realised there were so many different types!

oh yeah, there's an almost endless array of shithouse tox type shit out there, Cummins love E bolts, just to add further expense to the tool kit..

Cummins <giggle>

Cummins

There is such an array of type specific stuff out there

6 years ago, I was co opted onto a committee to look at standardisation. We all favoured the tripple square as it's cheap to produce and it fulfills every requirement and can be made of hard or soft material including alloys and non metallic materials.
We fell foul of a lot of ego's and the security industry...................

Stinkwheel(Matt) wrote:Dammit, the St Tropez failed it MOT yesterday.

Can I suggest the garage on the old mill near me then?

Marty's MiGless welding (C)2009.