AVO Shocks - Rose Joint Replacement ?

Peter D · 06-19-05, 04:48 AM

Having finally got sick of the clunks & rattles from the rear end, I pulled the car off the road & got serious.

Firstly, I found I had a lot of end-play in the half-shaft uni joints - they were cheap Taiwanese no-names & you could see quite a few thou difference in height when you stand one of these centre spider units beside a "real" one (Federal Mogul). Real ones are now in & there is absolutely no end-play.

Next, I found that the rose joint bearings on the AVO shocks have way too much play - with the car jacked up & wheels off, I can shake the rear ends of the trailing arms to get a rattle which echoes throughout the car ! I can feel the sloppiness just by resting a finger over the joints & shaking the trailing arms vertically (I can actually see the movement too).

Does anyone know if the rose joint bearings in the AVO's can be replaced, & if so, where I would find a reputable suppplier (preferably here in Oz) ?

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

Bill Musarra · 06-19-05, 09:37 AM

Peter,
It would be a great help if you could post some pics of the standard and Federal Mogul pieces to see what you are talking about. Are yoiu seeing slopiness in the actual mouting of the hubs or just the unis. On your shocks, was it a mismatch of the diameter of the securing bolt or is it the bearing in its retainer? If it is the later, that should be replaced as sooon as possible. sounds like it could fail rather easily.

Bill

Bill Bayard · 06-19-05, 01:16 PM

Pter,

It's highly unlikely that the bearings themselves are the problem on a car with so few miles. I'd be willing to bet that mismatched bolts are the culprits.
Pull a bolt, and try it through the rose joint with the top
or bottom of the shock detached from the mount. If it's loose in the bearing sleeve, you may just have an SAE bolt in a metric shock(AVO). I hope that it's that simple!

Bill

Peter D · 06-20-05, 05:20 AM

Sorry Bill, but the old uni's are already on their way to the recycler ! The play in the old uni's was purely along the 2 axes of the spider or cross-piece - both end caps were snug up against the circlips in the yokes, but I could move the spider back & forward along both of the spider's axes enough to make quite a rattle. I get no such end-play with the new ones, so it all came down to the no-names being slighly shorter across the spider than the real ones.

Bill & Bill, I will do some more tests on the shocks as you suggest, but I am not too hopeful about it being as simple as mis-matched bolts. The ball in the joint is clamped very tightly by a chamfered spacer on each side, so even if the bolt was under-sized, it would take a huge effort to make the ball/spacer assembly move up & down in its clamped state. As it is, I can very easily rattle the setup with one hand - basically just taking up the weight of the susp & letting it drop. I'll let you know how the further testing goes.

Bill B - "unlikely that the bearings themselves are the problem on a car with so few miles" - have you forgotten Murphy so quickly ?? !! I am thinking engine bearings, hub bearings, uni-joint bearings here - all virtually new, yet somehow I end up replacing them (some twice)!! Not a good track record to date ! Murphy made EFI/ignition your nemesis, & once he finished with you, came over here & declared "bearings" to mine - anything that looked or sounded like one, he is going to mess with !!

Thanks Guys & Kind Regards,

Peter D.

DenisBedford · 06-20-05, 06:40 AM

Pete you will be right about those shocks the bearings that come with them are rubbish I removed mine before 2000KLMS
and replaced them with urethane(excellent)- contact GT40Aust
AVO actually give you the choice these days Regards Denis

Peter D · 06-20-05, 08:20 AM

Thanks Dennis - I saw the urethane options on the AVO website, but had pretty-much discounted them because the tops of the shocks lean forwards by a couple of degrees. I was concerned that this slight distortion might chew the bushes out fairly quickly.

This is obviously not the case, so I'll give PR a call tomorrow. BTW, did you just replace the bearings, or the whole shock assemblies ?

Thanks & Kind Regards,

Peter D.