What have you done to your car today?

Good suggestion Davidov.

Could you change the mounting so they sit forward a little? Only thing is if you hit something they would be the first things to go.

If I did that I would do that on my 2002 which has the same bar. I could buy one of those number plate driving light mounts.
 
tried to replace the front lower ball joint, gave up after trying to get the tappered shaft out for 4 hours.
 
Gidday IDW

First time you do this is a bit of a trial.

Don't know if it's the same these days, but way back when ... I used a single jack sledge hammer against the outside of the taper, with the strike on the end facing directly up the lower control arm.

This causes the tapered hole to deform into an oval shape, allowing the tapered shaft to work its way free.

Gear pullers and the like will usually just break; and one should never strike the nut end of the ball joint.

It would probably help to spray the taper with a very thin lubricant such as RP-7, CRC, Penetrene, etc. this will gradually seep into the join, even though it is a very tight interference fit.

Good luck.
 
Bought some Lightforce 170's for the Forester to replace my smashed Narva 175's... From the research I should be able to double my straight line visability than with the Narva's and increase my spread beam by 3x :biggrin:
 
I've got 170's on my front of mine, good set of spotties; dont have the HID versions.

Ratbag, I ddn't want the hit it with a hammer as the boss is welded into the middle of the wish bone. The wish bone is hollow so if i hit it with a hammer it's going to deform the wishbone, or I'm just being too gentle what do you think, still give it a wack?
 
Gidday IDW

Ratbag, I ddn't want the hit it with a hammer as the boss is welded into the middle of the wish bone. The wish bone is hollow so if i hit it with a hammer it's going to deform the wishbone, or I'm just being too gentle what do you think, still give it a wack?

NO! The sort of ball joint pin I was dealing with was a tapered pin fitting into a tapered hole through a drop-forged control arm. Whole different ball game (no pun intended).

Modern cars are built far more "lightly" than cars were in my youth. Having said that, many modern cars are much stronger, with greater torsional rigidity, than most older cars.

Take it to a workshop that has the correct puller tool to remove it. Far cheaper than buying a whole swag of new suspension parts ... :iconwink:.

Sorry to mislead you, I have been unwell for some weeks - more so than usual, that is.
 
I'll pick up a joint splitter tomorrow, cheaper than workshop labour about $25. I should of to begin with. I'd usualy push out tappered shafts with a gear puller, but theres nothing to grip onto on the wishbone.
 
G'day again ID

At your age, collecting tools is part of the journey. I have a heap of special tools that I almost never use now. They have served me well in the past though.

These days, I get our mechanic of some 15+ years to do anything that needs to be done to our cars.
 
Finally got my control arm bushes in & had a wheel alignment:
Fr: 0 toe in; .4deg neg camber LHS, .2deg RHS
Rr: 1.5mm toe in; .3deg neg camber both sides

Have to chase down a bearing noise from the rear....
 
Spent 4 hours trying to change the front ball joints the other day. Bought the right tool turned the job into 20minutes a side...moral of the story sometimes its worth buying the tool.
 
Was going to install my 2" lift this weekend but I may need to put it off for next week. Got home yesterday and smelled burning coolant, took a look under the hood and there was coolant everywhere. Looks like the radiator is leaking out of the seams on the top and bottom. Looks like I'll be getting and installing a new radiator this weekend.
 
Cleaned out all the mud between my headlights and the headlight protectors. I might be able to actualy see with the headlights on now without putting on the spotties
 
It's from a 5 speed Impreza STI V4.

When locked, it's impossible to take a tight turn, it really locks :lildevil:
 
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