Radius Ball
 

Should the radius rod have Any back & forth movement at the radius ball? Thanks

Re: Radius Ball
 

The long answer and the short one are the same - NO!
If you have movement there, you are setting yourself up for what we call the death wobbles. If you undo the clamp and inspect the ball, I bet you will find it worn at the top. There are a number of fixes for it but I favour building it up with weld and reshaping it carefully back to 1 1/2" diameter. I have made a gauge to help me do that.
I am confident others will chime in with their ideas

Re: Radius Ball
 

Since it is spring loaded, my guess is that they did intend to have a little movement upon impact loading. If it was a rigid connection, that would put pretty big shock loads into the bell hsg.

Re: Radius Ball
 

Agreed. There is a good You-tube vid. I think Jack placed his cell phone under his car and went for a drive. That wishbone gets a workout.

Re: Radius Ball
 

The ball tends to wear more fore/aft than up/down, as the front axle places longitudinal force rather than vertical force on it. There are a couple of "remedies" - a heavy bell washer to take up slack, a rubber ball cover with larger plates and no springs, and a complete replacement ball. Synchro909 probably has the best remedy.

Re: Radius Ball
 

From what I've seen, consensus seems to be that the concave washer is pretty effective as a remedy and tends to last longer than the rubber cover. The rubber cover was an OEM solution to the problem in the past and many folks have one installed and say it's fine. Reshaping the ball is the most robust solution, but requires welding skills as well as the removal of the wishbone from the car, which is more than a lot of folks are willing to do.

Re: Radius Ball
 

In looking at the print and studying the design, my opinion is the springs really are not there to allow movement but are there to avoid catastrophic failure in the event of a sudden impact such as breaking a clutch housing.

Will Cronkrite and I were discussing something about this one day and he came up with a theory that I agree with totally. Most Clutch Housings are worn which does not allow those springs to be properly compressed. Once that area is restored where the the Radius Rod Cap bolt (A-21118) is the correct location, it makes the spring be under much greater tension. While this may seem trivial, it makes a huge difference on keeping that ball firmly planted into the socket and cap. Matter of fact, it is easy to overlook how tight the socket fits into the Clutch Housing. Any movement in this area allows the steering or brakes to be affected as it allows the entire front end to move around. Below is few pix of a Clutch Housing set-up for the Rod Cap Bolt shoulder to be counterbored and then a hardened washer to be installed so the retainer pin fits snugly in the head of the bolt. This relocates the bolt back within factory specs and puts proper spring pressure on the Cap.

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Re: Radius Ball
 

Thanks to all of you,