MOT fail on the day they stopped making the Defender

Cornishdefender said:

My 90 had its MOT test yesterday - and failed Only on one point - the steering box end ball joint on the drag link arm. Garage man said I could get the replacement from LRP in Camborne then it would 'just' be a case of dropping out the old one and fitting the new one. To be fair he did say it could be a bit fiddly!
HA!
So got the replacement part and OH and I then spent the best part of 2 and a half hours today getting the part fitted - Landy fought us every inch of the way! The first worst part was getting the top part of the 'knuckle collar' out (dunno the real name) - we tried to do it in situ (as per a post on the LR4x4 forum), but then had to resort to taking the arm off and taking the whole thing to the workbench. After a great deal of prising and hitting with a hammer the part finally came free.
Cleaned everything up and then reassembled - to find the absolutely worst part was getting the blasted circlip back into the fitting - getting the pressure on the spring to get the base in evenly was a nightmare, there is no way we could have done it while still attached to the vehicle.
Anyhoo all back together and back on the Landy - will be taking it back to the MOT centre on Monday

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Turboman said:

Best of luck with that! They arent so bad once you have done it a few times.

Did you use a quality OEM kit? Costing about forty quid at a guess. The £10 cheapies are sometimes such rubbish quality they are very hard to assemble.

It is quite easy to do in situ, but you need a few little bits of kit, like a bottle jack and a shaped piece of wood. and some little pullers made out of bolts for the top race. You could always borrow mine if you need them, but simple to make.

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