Steering rod ball joints

[Jay]

I think the Fiaminia section needs a bit of  bolstering especially technical content, so here’s a post inspired by Hubert (aka Tedesco) and his excellent thread ‘Flaminia Coupé -der Bugatti-Wagen’ on the AlfaBB forum. If you haven’t read it, it’s worth a look, it under Miscellaneous Forums > Other Italian Cars.

After rescuing a small engineer’s lathe and armed with a single thread cutting tool and a bit of rough steel. I decided I have ago at rebuilding the Flaminia’s steering rod ball joints that had failed the MOT. These are forged into the rod so can’t be replaced. So cutting off the top and cleaning out the gunk, the packing/bush seemed to be a nylon type material which had completely disintegrated. I set about turning new caps which screw in about 7mm into the old ball joint case, these are bored out to the same depth of 7mm. The threads were created by a tap and die set I purchased.  Unlike Hubert who turned the packing/bush out of bronze, I couldn’t find anything suitable so I use a sheet of 1.5mm brass alloy which I formed with difficulty into the right cup-ish shape.

Then screwed it all up with thread lock and gave it lick of paint. Glad to report no play at all, and a MOT pass, but don’t know how the bush will last. Although I shouldn’t take long to renew the bush.

[frankxhv773t]

It strikes me that after all that work you might drill a hole in the centre of the new cap and tap it to take a grease nipple. Or would that be overkill?