Thread: Defender Drop Arm Blues

Hi all. I went to change my steering drop arm ball joint the other day. For five years I have had a heavy duty steel steering guard on. As a result I neglected to check my drop arm ball joint, which had a split rubber boot. Eventually the steering got so bad, I took the guard off and realised what the problem was. I ordered a new ball joint from the UK, and eventually it turned up, a quarter of the Aust price. I thought I'd whip the drop arm off to do the job. Drop arm didn't budge. So I started dismantling the ball joint in situ. It was so badly worn, you couldn't tell where the ball joint finished and the drop arm started. The drop arm had to come off. I tried a heavy duty puller, with a clamp holding the puller arms on the lugs, with a breaker bar. It snapped the high tensile bolts holding the arms on the puller. I tried bashing it with a hammer. After numerous attempts, the only way the drop arm would come off, was by cutting a vertical cut with the angle grinder, just shy of the splines. Then clubbing the cut with a chisel and hammer. Finally the puller managed to remove the drop arm. New drop arm and ball joint in place and the steering is great. No more play. Moral of the story- check the rubber boots on your steering components regularly. Hope this helps someone.

When you put the arm back on use something like neverseize on the splines and you shouldn't have that problem again.