Headache of the week and it's only Tuesday!

Camper LT 35 having a ball joint fitted
Camper LT 35 having a ball joint fitted

This VW camper van failed it's MOT on a couple of minor points but also failed on a ball joint. The suspension arm has to be removed to gain access to the ball joint. Because the vehicle is an import and a left hand drive we struggled to find a replacement ball joint. We ended up with 5 different ball joints - all incorrect. Due to the age of the vehicle, main dealer could not help us out as they do not support a vehicle of this age.

One of the technicians mentioned that it looked the same as a Mercedes Sprinter suspension arm so we started going down that route. We managed to source a ball joint and began the task of removing a very seized arm and seized in ball joint. Absolute pain of a job and extremely labour intensive.

With a lot of huffing and puffing and a few choice swear words we managed to press a new ball joint into the existing arm and fit the complete arm back onto vehicle.

As we had the suspension in pieces we had to reset the tracking/wheel alignment

A quick MOT retest and the vehicle was good to go.

Camper LT with suspension apart
Camper LT with suspension apart


A definate headache of the week !