I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: __ sourcing and replacing drop link rubber boot
What a minefield!
My car failed it’s MoT on a split rear droplink boot - finding replacement’s seems tricky!
Is this simple to replace?
Ideas on the best place to source these welcomed!
I have till Thursday to re-MoT it for free.
I’m a reasonable mechanic and do most jobs on my motorbike but never done much on cars.
Too many confusing bits of unnecessary metal, imho!
Many thanks
In theory they are simple to replace, just 2 nuts to undo. In reality they are difficult because the nuts will be rusted solid. There are different methods on how to change them. My preferred method is to clean the exposed thread up with a wire brush and thread restorer, break the link off the ball joint, put a pair of vice grips onto the ball to hold it then undo the nut with a good fitting 14 mm 6 sided socket and long ratchet. Once you’ve got the nut moving, don’t stop turning it until it’s off. The heat that it generates helps. If it cools it’ll lock itself to the thread. I’d buy a genuine Mazda one.
I would just replace the whole drop link(s) rather faff with a boot search. Corrosion is going to be your nemesis, MX5 parts have them for cheap enough
Not sure you’re asking for the correct part. I’ve never seen a boot on a drop link. Dust cap maybe, but not sure why that would be an MOT failure. Can you post a picture of of the MOT? If it is to do with the drop links, just replace them.
Drop links have a ball joint at one end or both ends nowadays, generally. Very rare to not see a ball joint on them. The ball joints have a dust boot like all ball joints should.
Honestly, with the work involved and the price of droplinks, just do both droplinks, because once those boots go it is quite likely that that ball joint is going to develop play in the near future and will need replacing anyway. Also you might find it’s a pain to do just the boot, as - even if you get the right size - sometimes actual fitment varies between car models and you find yourself hunting for a specific type of retaining clip or you realise it needs its own special dust boot with an integral retainer, as I found on a mk1!
The difference in parts will be a few quid but getting the entire droplink will be less labour and give you peace of mind in the longer term.
You can buy individual boots for them, poly etc. I personally just don’t see the point because of the price to replace the whole thing. Suspension arms different story due to the price of new parts relative to a set of droplinks.
Thanks for all the advice guys, apologies for the long delay replying but I’ve had a lot of things to do outside of work.
I followed the general advice and got the local mechanic to do it - he charged me one hour’s labour (despite saying he had to cut the old ones off) so was less than £100 including parts.
Had to pay for a fresh MoT as I was outside the 10 days rule but got a car that’s legit and still loads of fun - cool!
Got a problem with the Vauxhall now tho….
