Are Your Balls Worn?

[scannon]

Last week I was doing a periodic check of bolt torques on the suspension of the Cat. For some reason I grabbed the anti-sway bar out near the end and gave it a shake.

 

I was quite surprised to feel some slack where the end disappears into the socket on the upper A arm. There is a black bakelite ball screwed onto the end of the anti-sway bar that rides in the socket which acts as the interface between the bar and the A arm.

 

I talked to Nathan and Ben about it and they said the balls were most likely broken, a not unusual occurrence with the Caterham.

 

Ben mailed me up a new pair of balls and I installed them a couple of days ago. The old balls were not broken but had a wear pattern around the circumference on both sides of the grease groove, see picture below. I didn't think to take a picture of the new ones but they didn't show any wear pattern.

 

When I next drove the car I was amazed at the difference in body lean and turn in. Far more than I expected since the measured difference in diameter between the worn and new balls was about 0.4 mm.

[Croc]

Skip - Thanks for this. How many miles did your balls do before they wore down to this?

[slngsht]

Skip, clearly you will drive closer to the limit with a new larger set of balls :rofl:

[BrunnyS1]

I must admit I have noticed my own balls drooping a bit as they get older but they still perform ok on a limited basis and as long as I do not push too hard.

[scannon]

Skip - Thanks for this. How many miles did your balls do before they wore down to this?

The car has just over 8k miles on it with about 6 track days. Not bad for just having its 3rd anniversary of being on the road this month. Lots of :Ds in those miles.