Mk8 T460 ex minibus camper front suspension.

[microbill55]

Hi all, yet another job which came up as an advisory on the MOT recently, was wear in the front lower (wishbone) suspension arms bushes. Garage gave a daft quote to fit new bushes, I ended up buying complete new arms from Euro car parts and new bolts from Ford as ECP don't have them. After watching the online videos, I set about doing the job myself. Using a newly bought Milwaukee impact gun ( WOW, what a tool, should have bought one years ago!), made it easy to loosen the front horizontal bush bolt, but the rear vertical one wouldn't budge. I ended up using a breaker bar and tube extension to finally get it to turn.the impact gun then brought the bolt down about 5 mm before it started spinning!
Panic set in , but I kind of remember one video mentioning a nut that was accessed through the chassis rail mounting structure ( a sort of closed box fixed to the main rail), which had to be held to remove the bolt. Has anyone done this and if so what size ring spanner do I need? I decided to call it a day and re- fitted the horizontal bolt, and gave the vertical bolt a spin, not expecting anything but constant spinning, but to my amazement, it tightened back up........ what's going on?
Incidentally, Ford didn't give me any nuts with the bolts, so I assumed it would go into a blind tapped hole which was correct for the front horizontal bolt but perhaps not for the vertical one? I clearly need advice from someone who has done this job.
Is there anyone who can point me in the right direction? Otherwise I fear it's a trip back to the garage.
I'm only doing these jobs as I'm selling the camper soon and want to be confident that all advisories have been sorted, so I can sell it with a "clean" full 12 months MOT and my conscience will be clear as there won't be any nasty surprises for the buyer.
Any advice / comments very welcome.
Cheers, Bill.

[metalworker0]

Umm .. what you have there is a captive nut..... meaning the nut that is inside the chassis rail is held in place by welds, as you have found the welds failed when you undid this rusty bolt .. this is common to happen.
Doing it back up..... often doing it back up is pulling down on the bolt .. so sort of re-engaged the broken weld. like a piece in a jigsaw.

Sorting the problem

Lubing the bolt threads, wire brushing ... and going back and forth doing up and loosening several times.. until threads don't give resistance .. you may get away with it... and be able to remove it and to tighten it after the arm is replaced .. you'll be lucky though!

Other methods

1 . Cutting a hole in the chassis rail so that you can stop the bolt turning with spanner or screw driver, and weld the bold securely once the job is done .. and weld up the hole.

2. If at all possible, remove front bumper , remove crash bar ..... you can then see down into the chassis leg and may be able to put long steel crow bar into it and stop the head turning .. requires two people. when removed drill holes each side of the head and plug weld it back in.

3 It may be possible to do key hole surgery through a 12mm diameter drilled hole ... as in suggestion number one.. and stop it rotating with a screw driver.


all the best.mark

[microbill55]

Oh dear. Thought it may have been a captive nut scenario, your analogy to the jigsaw piece was brilliant, as even my wife understood that. No disrespect to her but she admits to being mechanically clueless.
I neglected to say that at the front of the box section there is already a punched hole of about 30 mm diameter. I tried to see what was inside, but couldn't. I may buy a cheap illuminated endoscope to at least clarify things. When I tried the mobile phone, I still couldn't see clearly.
I can now see why the garage gave the daft quote for this job, but I'd rather spend the money on the tools needed and learn a bit in the process.
I'll also check with Ford about the nut possibility.
Bill

[metalworker0]

My mate just bought a good endoscope for me off Temu .. i'm very impressed with it for the price of £22

model UN-3481

oh, in instructions above were i said bolt, i meant nut a couple of times

all the best.mark

[metalworker0]

that number is off the box .. and is code for lithium batteries

so delved deeper .. no make on it just this label

[dumper]

When mine was done had to cut a hole in the chassis and weld plate on afterwards

[microbill55]

Thanks for the link. I'm going to phone Ford on Monday and explain everything to the parts guy who said he had done similar jobs when he worked in the workshop, years before. He was extremely helpful when I picked up the parts.......not always the case!.
I'm glad you chipped in dumper, as I've gathered when looking at previous posts that you also have a 2015 T460 converted to a campervan. Not so glad to hear that this also happened to you with the front lower suspension arms!
I'm going to get the endoscope and really see the problem up close. Luckily my stepson has done welding professionally and still has all the gear. As a retired builder, I still have grinders, crowbars, big hammers etc., so we could probably sort this out, between us. I also have plenty of time and can't sit on my ass all day doing nothing, so watch this space!!
Thanks to all. Bill

[metalworker0]

There are few types of captive nut .. I'll describe three of them, some with blobs of weld around them and some with like a bent bit of metal forming a top hat over them that grips the flats.. this is welded where the brim is. then there are RivNuts that are not welded, but don't think they would use them in this situation.

all the best.mark

[dumper]

What I’ve done in the past for box sections that I’ve cut the box weld a flat plate to a nut that when dropped into the chassis wouldn’t tern when the bolt has entered the nut you’re able to tighten the bolt
Forgot drill clearance hole in plat first

[microbill55]

Hopefully this comes out, it's a still from a video.

[microbill55]

I'm very surprised that worked. It's the captive nut in it's broken cage inside the chassis box . A really poor design.
Chip in with your thoughts.
Bill

[metalworker0]

yeah just found this
https://www.talkford.com/attachments/nut2-jpg.127035/

from this at talkfod .com

https://www.talkford.com/threads/subfra ... 17&slide=5

really poor they have had since 1965 to get it right, or we could go back further to the model T

all the best.mark

[microbill55]

I've just read all the posts and now realise that Ford ( probably ) had the 30 mm hole punched in the front of the chassis box to allow access for the ring spanner to hold the nut. Cheaper solution than designing a better fixing method, however, the hole allows water in every time you go through puddles causing corrosion, but they anticipated this by leaving a lower corner off as a drain hole! Would have been a good idea, using Fords backwards logic, to provide a bung for the hole, but that may have cost 5 pence!
It's really beyond belief that Ford have continued to use this shockingly poor design ( or variations of it ) in so many of it's vehicles for so long. The designer should be shot!
Bill

[metalworker0]

Ford don't care as long as they get the money .. i seen transits .. all years, rot through the front wheel arch year after year , model after model .. they did nothing about that .. no improvements nothing.



what they did do though was provide plenty of access, so you could waxoyl all these areas. even bungs to take out , so owned from new with this knowledge you could avoid the scenario you're just encountered.

all the best.mark

[dumper]

It’s not just Ford that use captive nuts in chassis and box sections it’s impossible to have captive nuts where you can get a spanner on if the break free when removing the fixings as for rust in the 60s 70s and 80s they never lasted 10 years I remember welding vans up for their first mot