360 Front upper arm ball joints.. wow!

Ferrari is the only company I know that uses glue to hold a critical suspension part. Make sure your arm is still round and not oblonged because of the excessive movement.

Ferrari is a joke when it comes to stuff like this. 300k for a car and they can't even build a control arm with a ball joint like a Benz or BMW which costs 400 bucks to replace including labor.

 

Even cheap cars have more durable parts.

 

Curt,

Wow indeed! I'm not sure I'd be driving that until they were bonded back in.......

Factory or previous owner didn't like the price of Hysol?

 

Where are you getting the Hysol from ?

 

We have it available in stock.

 

There are specific dimensions to be measured on the joint apertures. Corrosion caused by water ingress through split boots eats away at the arm creating excessive movement in the joint and the adhesive breaks loose. I doubt your arms are serviceable. There was a TSB issued by Ferrari with acceptable dimensions. I'll look it out and post it up.

Rose joints are for race cars not road cars. They never last long when used in the wrong application. Ferrari used them in the wrong application.

 

this may be of interest to all:

Henkel Loctite Hysol EA 9360 Epoxy Adhesive 50 mL Sempak

 

I just learned something from this thread.

"Rose joints" is British for heim joints. And here's why: Rod end bearing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

If that picture is of the joint as it came out of the car then it wasn't glued in when it was installed. If this is the case then, as Ed says, the arm is probably junk as that joint will have been rattling around in there. Here are the specs...
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Yes, sadly it seems likely the BJ has been shifting around in there and given that the control arm is the weaker metal it's likely to have worn the aluminium rather than the steel of the BJ. I feel the glue is not to hold the part in place, rather to prevent movement which causes wear,

It wouldn't really have been the circlips that was holding things together, rather the weight of the car would have been pressing the BJ into the arm (and then of course the whole assembly is effectively captive in the hub also, unlike the hip&socket type ball joints more commonly used in other marques).

Even allowing for taxes and international shipping , I suspect you might find that you can source upper arms for a significantly lower price if you shop around. Perhaps try UK or other European suppliers. I see one offering at US$528 and bearing in mind that it comes with factory fresh BJs and Boots already installed (but not flanbloc) it's a relative steal.

 

It's a rediculose design. Never on any other car have I seen such a thing. I have no idea what the engineers were thinking with this one. Any ideas as to why they would do this? Is there a specific reason I simply don't understand?

 

Greg is absolutely correct in his assessment of the design and operation as well as the "captive" aspect of the parts.

It is not a "bad engineering" design to use adhesive to pot a steel fitting into an aluminum receiver / structure --- it is common practice in Aerospace and Aircraft designs --- especially spherical bearing / ball joints.

The overall configuration of the joint and the sizing of the loaded areas needs to be adequate however. It is possible that Ferrari made some mistake there --- I don't know without seeing the drawings and the load analysis.

I suspect that it is much more likely, however that either the adhesive used was defective, improperly mixed, improperly cured, expired, etc. causing it to break down prematurely thus leaving the joint loose --- this would simply make the problem a quality control issue. It is also quite possible that someone who did not know better exposed that adhesive joint to a cleaner / degreaser agent that dissolved the adhesive, or excessive heat that broke it down, at some point.

If this were a poor design on paper, we would be seeing multiple failures in the field by now. And, I don't recall anyone observing this to be a repeating failure...... so, that again points to a quality control issue and an error made producing only this particular unit. Or, again, someone damaged it later on by exposing it to something they shouldn't have long after the car left Maranello.

Another possibility is that Ferrari (or whatever sub makes these for them) entirely missed injecting this one with adhesive all together during production --- another QC issue then in that case as well.

CURT ---

Can you detect any residual adhesive at all on any of the bonded areas --- or are they completely bare ??