MOT coming up fast so I thought I had better check my 9 year old multijet for the obvious faults. I jacked up the car, took off each wheel in turn to look at the shocks, brakes, and bearings. The offside front was last and I found that the rear rubber bush in the lower wishbone had so much play that it allowed the wheel to move almost an inch fore and aft. I have ordered a wishbone from my local car parts shop to pick up tomorrow. Although this would be a definite MOT fail there is no danger of the wheel falling off but I had no idea that the problem was there while driving. To check whether the bush is ok is easy, with the car parked with the handbrake on just try to roll the top of the front wheel back and forth, it shouldn't move much. Compare left and right sides as it is unlikely that both sides will fail at the same time. Also I found that an 18mm socket is required for the large bolts.

Ideally you should replace both sides, from the same supplier, to ensure they're a pair. Excludes steering issues in case of minor dimensional discrepancies.

Torque on the mounting bolts is 120Nm / 89lbf/ft. Final tighten with the car sat on its wheels normally, after bouncing it a few times. This torques the mountings in their "at rest" position and avoids the rubber being stressed before the suspension moves.

Sounds about right. I had mine changed last year aged 8 with approx 75K miles on the clock.

Yes, I will replace the nearside shortly but my MOT is on Friday and I probably won't have time. I have looked in the Haynes book and on the Fiat CD and the torque settings vary somewhat. I understand the need to have the bushes relaxed at the normal ride height, actually only the front bush can benefit, the rear won't. Still I can't complain, the car is nine years old and this is the first suspension component to fail.

Don't forget to get your front wheel alignment checked !

I do my own wheel alignment with a Trackace laser tool. It is ideal for the diy person and I can get 10 minutes of angle repeatability. I have found that 10-20 minutes toe in gives even wear on my car. toe out gives more wear on the inside of the tread. It costs about £70.

tinmar49 said:

Yes, I will replace the nearside shortly but my MOT is on Friday and I probably won't have time. I have looked in the Haynes book and on the Fiat CD and the torque settings vary somewhat. I understand the need to have the bushes relaxed at the normal ride height, actually only the front bush can benefit, the rear won't. Still I can't complain, the car is nine years old and this is the first suspension component to fail.

Click to expand...

My Haynes came with an addendum sheet, which shows the 120Nm I quoted. I've just looked at my Fiat CD and that says 12DaNm, which is 120Nm.

My Haynes does not have the addendum sheet, I noticed straight away that things were a bit suspect, would you tighten an 8 mm bolt to 60nm-44ftlbs? The correct torque is 32nm-23ftlbs and that is good and tight for the pinch bolt. As for the Fiat CD, that is vague on the torque setting page as it does not tally with the procedures page. Anyway, I managed to do the drivers side today. The head of the pinch bolt was a little sloppy on my 13 mm socket, so I used a 1/2 af which fitted much better. I had trouble getting the front bolt to line up, it was almost in line but these things can be a pain in the neck. Tips for diy-ers ,leave the wedge in the swivel hub and scrape any rust out of the hole, also use at least 2ft (600mm) socket extensions to make it easy to tighten the front bolt when the car is resting on its wheels. The rear bolt can be reached easily when the car is on its wheels. Now the new wishbone is fitted, the remaining "good" one is noticeably inferior.

I think its about time I did mine. 2006, 43,000 miles.

For anyone with a Haynes, here is the addendum sheet.

I checked the wheel alignment and the toe in has increased from 10 minutes to 35 minutes. The steering wheel has rotated about 20 mm clockwise. I will fix this after doing the other wishbone. The ePer CD procedures gives 85nm -62ftlbs for the 12 mm bolts which conflicts with the torques section.

Just finished the nearside, it took me 90 minutes, the first took 3 hours. I reckon a mechanic would take less than an hour a side easily. Time to do the tracking. Tools used, 13mm,18mm and 1/2 sockets, two long extensions (optional, makes torqueing the front bolt easier), and an old screwdriver, 6 to 7 inches long to tap into the slot in the hub. My torque wrench still had the error chart which I made from the master testers when I worked in the aircraft industry. The 8 mm nuts and bolts are new 12.9 high tensile,50 mm long the same as the originals which seems too long but never mind. Also, I used a drift to remove the balljoint, about 8 to 10 inches long. Fitting the new balljoint, I used a small block of wood and avoided hitting the bottom of the swivel bearing. Ho Hum, my shocks will be next, I bet.

have replaced rear Bush on nsf lower arm on my mjet today, was a complete new arm over a year ago but the Bush had gone weak creating a fair amount of movement.nice easy job to do, removed and replaced Bush and tracked up in an hour! The best car I've had yet to work on .

I don't trust Haynes manuals, they just don't seem to be able to put correct figures into their specification sheets.
The toe setting is quoted as 0 degree plus or minus one degree, which is far too big a tolerance.
The Haynes manual for a MKIV Ford Escort also has the wrong toe setting as I found out years ago.
Their website doesn't seem to give details of their amendments either, which I think is very poor.
Thanks to portland_bill for the correcting information.

Now you've got me worried, the e-learn CD states + - 1 mm for toe in/out, I tried calculating this using my 14 inch alloys which are 385 mm at the flange. Calculated figures are + - 8.9 minutes of angle which is over six times tighter tolerance than the + - 1 degree. Iv'e been using 10 minutes toe in which I thought was ok and my tyres have not exhibited uneven wear.