Offroad-Express

so i want to put some ball joint spacers in the front end of the l200 to lift it up a bit and to lower the amount of pressure on my torsion bars. however the ball joints are pinned so i was wondering would it be possible to just replace the upper control arms with ones that have the 3 bolt ball joints.

i just cut my bump stops in half made a huge difference

From memory, and I am quite willing to be corrected because it has been a long time since I worked on a Mitzi front end, but the "riveted" ball joints were factory fitted. When replacing with after market ball joints the rivets are drilled out and the new ball joints fitted using suitable bolts. So doing a ball joint flip you could replace the rivets with bolts. The rivets are 8mm from the factory. If you are going to replace with bolts and fit a spacer, I always upgraded the bolts to 10mm grade 12.8 Allen head bolts. There is plenty of meat left in the pressed steel arm to accommodate the bigger hole for the bolts. A word of caution though... technically this modification requires an engineering cert. Your call.
Doing a ball joint flip, not installing a spacer and trimming the droop bump stop increases your front end articulation considerably.
A wheel alignment is required after a ball joint flip.
Hope this helps.

not to keen on doing stuff to the bump stops. i was thinking more along the lines of just removing the top arm and replacing it with another l200s with the 3 bolts already there. that way id just need to flip the ball joint and get spacers made. main thing i want to know is will the top arms be able to be swapped or is one a different size/shape to the other.

Your prepared to do a major mod like ball joint flip yet not something as minor as trimming the bump stops??

I'd do the bump stops on the upper arm and then re consider.

I think L200's were based on early model Pajeros and late model Pajero upper arms fit on early Pajeros so they should fit on L200. Because the arms are longer the vehicle needs a lift for it to work otherwise you are like this from the front \ /. Doing the ball joint flip gives the same effect, hence the need for wheel alignment.

NJV6 wrote:Your prepared to do a major mod like ball joint flip yet not something as minor as trimming the bump stops??

ive got a freind whos willing to do the flip for me and as for the bumps im staying clear because ive known to many people get into trouble over cut bump stops

I have a pair of 93 Pajero 3.0 top arms in the shed. They have nearly new bushes too. $60. Cheers andy.

Take the two lower bump stops off and cut them into a pyramid shape, same height as standard but with more flex. it made a huge difference to mine when I lifted it on the torsion bars, much smoother going over crests.

Id be careful cutting the bump stops , you would want to know the compressed lengths of the shocks you are going to run first to ensure they wont bottom out ,

so figured id update a wee bit spent a couple of hours swapping the upper arms over to the pajero ones i got and installed the ball joint and spacer. the trucks now sitting at a height i like it only downside at the moment is the trucks sitting with the wheel like this \ / hopefully i can get this sorted with a wheel alighnment haha

in hind sight you should have measured the distance from the front/ inside edges of the rims before unbolting anything, this would have given you a rough reference to adjust the tie rods ends to get it safe enough to drive to a wheel alignment.

yh hahaha didnt think about it much. i was doing this over my lunch breaks so didnt do to badly.