Clunk in the front right side

Darn, I just had my car out yesterday for it's once a week maintenance/mental health ride and on the way back home I noticed a bit of uneasiness at speed. Then I entered my driveway and "CLUNK"! Once parked, I grabbed the front right wheel and pulled hard and...yup, something is not right. Sounded like loose lug nuts but they were all tight. I am hoping it is an easy to replace part, or something loose that I can snug back into spec but it wont be until the weekend that I can get that tire off and poke around.

The funny thing was the quickness of the onset of the condition. I drive my car once a week and then to just suddenly find myself at an obvious out of whack place seems odd. I would have thought that it would come on more slowly. Fingers crossed!

 

Thanks for the mention. I hope to get the car jacked up and pull the wheel soon. Pretty sure the problem will be easy to find. Hopefully easy to fix too!

I JUST got the garage cleaned up and tools put away from a big tear down of my Ducati! Literally just got it finished up over the weekend, been at it since October and then the Ferrari goes....clunk! lol

Shhhh...I think "somebody" got jealous!
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OK I have not had the need to jack up my F-Car so I discovered that my tried and true floor jack was not going to fit! That's OK I have been wanting to get one of those fancyt aluminum jobs for a while so now I have one! Looks my upper ball joint gave up the ghost. I feel comfortable performing this operation myself but I want to read up on a few threads first to see if there are any tricks or pitfalls to avoid. Which of you have done this?

 

I read through Voicey's DIY thread for this and feel up to the task. Well providing I can find my arbor press! lol I know I have one but am not sure what box it is in!

My only concern is if there is any chance of messing up the alignment by swapping the ball joint? I have not yet seen mention of alignment being an issue in the threads I found. In my mind the only chance to alter it would be if the bearing gets pressed into the hole a different depth than where it is now. Is that a legitimate concern? Or does the design of the parts dictate the position making it a no brainer?

To keep it informative here is what I found so far.
The clunk was heard when I grabbed the brake rotor near the top and pushed and pulled it. At first I thought it was coming from the bolt 1 and 2 area but after using a stethoscope it was clearly coming from bolt 5. This is the bolt that goes through the ball joint.

Other things to note are that my bolts 1 and 2 were not torqued up as tight as 3 and 4. AND bolt 5 had loosened a bit so that the torque stripe was not aligned any more. It was about 5 degrees off. I am thinking that some extra vibration from the worsening condition was the culprit.
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If the car was going to be up there for any length of time I would have popped a jack under there.

I am ready to place an order with you once I figure out if my nice ratcheting arbor press that used to have made the move here or not! I don't want to buy any installation tools if I don't need them.

 

Pliers...check

I am up on heat application to ease installation and was going to use a heat gun but had not seen that heat is required for the curing. I can also freeze the bearings unless that causes an adhesion issue.

I recall some 2 part epoxy "wetted" details pressed into the landing gear of fighter aircraft but never did we put the airplane in an oven for a cure cycle.

Do you recall the name of the material that you are familiar with?

 

Thank you! Very good info. It looks like the oven curing may be to speed up the cure. This would help the service department! The literature I am seeing says "cure at room temps in 5-7 days" which is fine for me.
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Can you use part of the Hysol and then keep in freezer to use the rest at a later time?

 

Thank Daniel, Order placed!

 

Box of fun just showed up. I popped the Hysol in the Sub Zero until I can get to it maybe I can sneak in some time this weekend, not sure yet. Wife says we are busy this weekend! :-(
Now she tells me!...
But Honey, I just got my weekend activity box in the mail! ;-)

Almost forgot to say... what a nice pack job Daniel and thank you very much for getting it to me so quick! I was a bit worried about the transit time with the Hysol. Great job...as always!

 

OK I got the bad arm out and the hysol or whatever the factory uses was all gone. I just pulled the ball joint out of the arm with my fingers. What remained was like a dust that I could wipe away with my finger. No grease inside the cups either just dry with residue. Does anyone have any grease recommendations for when I put it back together. Is wheel bearing grease good enough or is it too thick? What is the closest thing to the one mentioned on the bulletin that my local auto parts store might have?