Thread: Re-fitting Defender front radius arms. Help!

Depending on how your car/ chassis is supported,
You could fit the radius arms to the axle housing and then roll them toward the rear of the vehicle and into their mounting holes.

Originally Posted by fitzy

Depending on how your car/ chassis is supported,
You could fit the radius arms to the axle housing and then roll them toward the rear of the vehicle and into their mounting holes.

Arrr, hadnt thought of that. The vehicle is sitting on jacks under the chassis rails so it might be an option.. i have the front axle supported on a floor jack. Problem is it is outside as it has a 3inch lift and a roof rack so way too highto fit in my shed.

Thanks fitzy

Cheers, Simon

If you have both radius arms out, you may need to undo the panhard rod as the diff will now be pushed to one side slightly and not allowing the radius arms to be square to the chassis.
Once you get a bolt through the bush, you will need to rotate the diff housing.
Using a jack to apply pressure near the pinion will work.
I would insert chassis end first, then rear bolt, rotate diff to get the front bolt in.

IIRC when I did mine I 'tapped' the arm up into the diff housing until close to position then used a pry bar to wiggle it around until I could get one bolt through (fiddly) while making sure the diff nose was pointing down a bit more than usual. Once the first bolt was in I then put a jack under the diff pinion and lifted it until the diff rotated enough to line up the other one. The did similar on the other side but without the ability to really rotate the diff (obviously). It was a bit fiddly and used various pry bars and hammers to get things lined up. Leave all bolts quite loose until they are all in place and then tighten fully. Good luck with it, you'll get there.

Thanks boost51 and DiscoClax

After around 2 1/2 hours this afternoon and much fiddling, jacking prying with pry bars and tyre levers and whacking with hammers I have managed to get the rear bolts on each side located and nuts in loosely. Attempted to get the front ones in but they dont line up square at all. The mozzies were starting to get too bad and the sun was dropping behind the hills so time to pull the pin for another day. At least two bolts closer to completion now so gotta be happy with that I guess.

Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement, I hope I dont need to this again in a hurry. I have the rear bushes and A frame ball joint to do next. .

I reckon you are fighting the panhard rod.

With the rear a frame bushes, it may be easier to undo the 3 bolts on each side that hold the brackets to the chassis.
Also there are 4 bolts that hold the lower bracket on the balljoint to the diff housing. If you undo these and remove it all from the vehicle it will probably be save a lot of frustration.

With the 2x 1/2 inch UNF bolts that bolt the A frame arms to the ball joint housing, The manuals are incorrect on the torque value.
They state 176 Nm which will strip the bolt.
95/100 Nm is what I do them up to.

Thanks jboot51

Ill wip the panhard rod off for my next session and see it that gives me some more flexibility. Thanks for the heads up on the a frame ball joint. I was thinking my big challenge there would be pressing out the old one and getting tbe new one in!

With the ball joint you need to cut through the old mounting plate of the balljoint, near the bolt holes and remove the "ears" to mount it in the press.
My first balljoint removal required a 20T press.
I have since done it several times with my 6T press successfully.
When pressing the new ball joint in, I would recommend using some short guide bolts to get it lined up, as you really only get 1 shot at it.