www.jec.org.uk

Guys,

Those of you who have this type of suspension and have attempted to split the lower front ball joint, may know that doing so can be far from easy. The ball joint stud is some 58mm long and the joint shank is a tapered fit. Splitting these joints can be extremely difficult of not impossible without the correct tool.

jaguar sell a scissor action splitter which runs out at a cost of £135 plus VAT and postage. Purchasing such a tool at that price unless used on a daily basis is hard to justify for most of us so I began to look for an alternative. Forget the Halfords or Silverline kit, it just does not have the right jaw height. A splitter with a large "bite" is needed and suitable tools are few and far between and those that just make the grade are again expensive.

Chris Fairlie and I recently set about attempting to find a suitable and affordable splitter having not being able to split the lower front ball joints on his 2010 plate XFR. The challenge was on. Chris pointed to Amazon where we found a commercial splitter with an 80mm jaw opening and a lower opening sufficiently large enough to get around the top of the joint gaiter without damaging it during the splitting process. The ball joint shown here is to be found on 2002.5> S-type, X350, XF and similar maybe on XK8 and later XK models.

The splitter arrived today for just £30 delivered but having taken a week to arrive. Made by Toolzone, this unit is a real bruiser but I am confident enough to think that it is still small enough to fit into the area around the ball joint and bottom drop arm. Images here describe better than words. Obviously we have to trial fit the splitter to be sure that it is suitable but I`m quietly confident that at long last we have an affordable unit that will do what we want. I`ll report back on that later. Would you believe it! Our site has allowed me to upload more than three images at a time and at full size with no resizing needed! That makes image posting much easier. Thanks to our site minders for actioning that improvement.

Mike K

That's quite a big boy! My 30-year old splitter can only handle a max of about 53mm.

Never had a problem loading more than 3 pics. But glad to hear that you're sorted as well, Mike!

Paul

Hi Mike,
Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I am curious if the Toolzone AU046 did the job for the ball joints?
Cheers
Steven

Yes it did work but a small amount of grinding out of the fork had to be done to clear the joint. The splitter is a fair old chunk of tool and anything less is a waste of time. The only alternative would be to buy the Jaguar special tool which was mightily expensive.

Breaking apart the ball joint on the "banana arm" type suspension on 2002.5> onwards Jaguar vehicles can indeed be challenging. This joint is a large unit which is very robust and has a fit which requires a great deal of force to break apart. A big tool for a big job is needed.

Hope that helps.

Mike

Thanks Mike.
I'll get one and give it a go.
I had to remove the upright on my 1st s-type 2.5 in order to replace a wheel bearing cartridge, which had fused itself into the upright, and I knackered a perfectly good ball joint trying to get it apart. When I get around to it I am intent on replacing all the suspension bushes on my STR (thanks for your posts on that topic) and I don't want to trash the ball joints again in the process.
Cheers
Steven