Hi,

I'm new to this forum, although I've been reading it for weeks, now. There's a huge amount of knowledge here and I think it's really interesting to read.

I'll introduce myself shortly:
My name is Bart-Jan Zwart and I live in the north of The Netherlands. In the summer of 2004 I bought an old chassis of a Midtec Spyder. I don't have the body of the midtec, which I don't mind cause I don't like it anyway... The thing I liked about the chassis is the longitudinal placement of the mid-engine, in contradiction to so many other middies, which have their engines transverse (I think it is called...). I intend to mount a V8 in it (not shure which...) and I've bought secondhand clamshells of a Lotus Elise, which almost emidiately fit!

Now my problem: I have reconditioned all chassis parts and now I'm assembling the suspension parts. The front suspension uses Cortina uprights and Transit upper balljoints, just like many seven style cars do. But when i mount the tapered part of the balljoint in the upright, only a short length of thread still sticks through. It is just enough to mount the locking nut. It can be seen in the picture I have attached.

Although I live in The Netherlands, I intend to take the finished car to England to have it SVA'ed. So I need to assembe the car according to the SVA rules. Somewhere in their rules, I read that a bolt has to stick through a nut with two windings of the thread visible. With the Cortina upright and 'standard' transit balljoint, that's not the case. I guess more people have had this problem; what are your experiences? Hiding it with a cap; is that enough (although i wouldn't need it cause I will have a closed body)? Is it not a problem? Do I need to grind away a few mm's of the nut surface of the upright? Can you please advise me with your SVA experiences?

Regards, Bart-Jan
Rescued attachment Upper ball joint.jpg

Having the same problem.

most peeps on here use a 1/2 depth nut or someone mentioned a landrover balljoint that had a longet pin,try a search on that

I machined a nut down so it would fit but I thought that having less threads would make it weaker.
Can you use a stronger and smaller nut?

On the Avon, we drilled a 1mm hole thought the nut and ball joint and pinned it with a split pin.

Just thought - how about a K nut?

Pat...

There are several makes of balljoint aviable for the upper transit joint, like TRW, Sidem, Spidan or QH.
They are made for identical applications, but differ a lot in thread dimensions.
Just hop on by at Brezan or Lasaulec and see what they have got liing around.
Greets, Rob

You can buy half-height Nyloc and castle nuts which will get around the "two threads protruding" requirement.
A properly mating taper stud and seat make an extremely strong mechanical joint, and the tension required to make the connection shouldn't exceed the capacity of the thread/nut combinations.
However, there's nothing as reassuring as a good safety margin, so it could be useful to everyone here if someone would post details of the different makes of Transit drag links and their respective taper stud thread lengths.

It's great to read so many response!
Luckilly for me, I'm not the only one having this problem.

I will try the half-height Nylocs;
Anyway, the idea of grinding away material from the upright (the surface where the nut rests on) doesn't seem to get much support. I didn't like it anyway, as I have just painted and assemled the unit...

Landrover/range rover classic TRE's fit the taper with plent of thread stricking out, not sure what size the thread into the wishbone is, 11/16" is the size, cannot tell you the pitch of type except that they are fine threads.

Regards Mark

They're 11/16-24 UNF and appear to be from 01/87-12/88 Range Rover 3.5, 01/89-12/92 Range Rover 3.9, 01/94-12/04 Defender 3.9 & 4.0, 01/94-12/95 Discovery 3.9, 01/96-12/99 Discovery 4.0.
The Lemforder part # is DW026050103M, but I don't know the OEM number for it.
A suitable tap may be harder to find/more expensive.