Another MOT failure!

Hi Guys

The bus failed its MOT on front n/s lower ball joint, exhaust blowing, rear brakes to tight, handbrake enificient

Can someone tell me how easy it is to do the front lower ball joint? Would the tracking need doing after also?

We've been quoted £150 to do all the above without parts so would be good to know any bits we can do ourselves.

Thanks dudes!!

correction I think its just the rubber boot on the ball joint.

None of it is that difficult, just niggly pain in the arse stuff.

As you say its only the rubber on the ball joint (if it was the joint itself the new one would need pressing in) all you need to do is split it, unfortunately most splitters are to small for main bus ball joints although your welcome to borrow both of mine it you want to try them. Paul_f also posted a method a few threads below.

You need to find the blow and establish if its a rust hole or a fit issue.

Did you adjust the hand brake after fitting new rear shoes? if not adjust if up (5 min job). Does it have any MOT left on it? as it sounds like the new shoes need to bed into the old drums, which means driving it for a while, but if not you'll just have to back off the shoe adjustment a bit and tighten the hand brake up as much as you can and hope for the best otherwise you might need new drums as well.

Cheers rob 
Russ lent me his splitter for the track rod ends which is a pretty hefty one so ill have a try with that.
Mike did the brakes for us a couple of weekends ago although we didn’t fit new shoes we just tightened them up so we can back them off a bit. The handbrake is already as tight as it can go I think so we probably have a stretched cable.
Looks like we may have Christian coming over on Wednesday evening for a hand so may have a go then, if we dont get it done we will be offering lunchtime strongbows on Sunday for anyone whos around in the hope we can get it back in before our free restest runs out!!

How many clicks on the handbrake?

If its more than half a dozen and its still not working then your probably right about the cables. As temp fix you could put a couple of larger nuts under the adjusting nuts to act as spacers.

Did you remove the drums to take a look at the shoes? might also be worn down shoes that need replacing.

Is Russ's splitter a scissor or fork type? most car scissor ones are to small for bay joints, i have both but fork ones can damage the ball joint if it's tight and almost always damage the rubber but your replacing that anyway.

Just do it the way I mentioned in a previous post. You won't get it out using any sort of ball joint splitter unless it is one made for a lorry or a coach

Thanks dudes!

Update!

Christian came round last night to give a hand. After jacking the van up and having a good prod around there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the lower ball joint rubber, if anything they look just as new as the track rod ones I did! We checked all of them and they are fine so we rang jo's friend who takes it in and he said give them a wipe and dont worry about it then! lol

New exhaust fitted!

Just need to sort the brakes now as we run out of light. With regards to the handbrake the mot said its efficiency was 14% and needs to be above 16%. Mikey helped dial in the rear brakes but the mot said they were too tight (so they can be backed off slighty) shouldnt the handbrake have been too tight also then? We tightned the handbrake with Mike and it now it only pulls 4 clicks. There were a couple of small ridges in the drum could this be whats causing it not to be efficient?