Drop arm puller - Defender one won’t fit the Discovery drop arm??

[Northwards]

Hi folks,

I’m replacing the steering box on my 1994 Defender as it’s leaking enough to have offended the MOT tester. Not so long ago, maybe a couple of years, I replaced the Defender drop arm with one of the Disco ones, using the Gwyn Lewis kit.

I have one of these style of drop arm pullers.

I was a bit cheesed off to find that it won’t fit over the Discover arm. Even with the drop arm nut removed it just won’t fit. If I take it to the new steering box, which came with a standard Defender arm/ball joInt it fits fine even with the nut in place.

My first thought was that maybe there were different pullers for Defender and Discos but googling suggests not.

I can probably get the box out, and just whack away at it with a hammer and drift, so it’s not a show-stopper, I’m just wondering what the issue is as I might well consider getting the right tool for future occasions. 

 

[Northwards]

So I’ve dug about a little further and found a company HNJ engineering who make nice looking pullers. I asked them if their pullers would fit and the answer was: “No, depending on the part number of the Disco drop arm that’s been used.”

Checking Gwyn Lewis’ site it looks like he supplies NTC9236. Can anyone confirm that this means I either need to get a much more expensive puller (if I wanted) or just accept that the whole box would need to come out if I want to remove the arm - so that I can get access to the lugs at the back of the arm and belt them with a hammer/drift? 

[muddy]

Without seeing the arm I cannot say for certain but I have in the past used the two leg hydraulic pullers to remove drop arms, it can be a little bum twitchy but that's the fun of spattering! Kits on eBay for around £100 and of course they have multiple uses.

[Blanco]

I had a similar problem, I just tweaked the clearance a bit. Here

[Northwards]

Thank you! Yep that would do it, except I don't have one of those 'shave-ey' things - and obviously don't even know what it's called!

Seriously, that's probably a good solution. I'll just take some good measurements once the box is off and take the puller down to an engineering workshop in town along with that photo that's in your linked post. 

[Daan]

I can see a grinder based solution coming up. Could you show a picture of the puller onto the disco drop arm?

[Northwards]

^^ Certainly can. I loosened all the fixings and disconnected the box yesterday afternoon and left it to drain, so the plan for this evening is to take it off and put the new one in place.

That would probably be enough for one after-work stint in a sub-zero garage, so I'll get a photo taken once it's on the bench. Watch this space. 

[Northwards]

Got the box out OK last night - though it was FF cold in the garage.

This is the puller I have, trying to fit onto the Disco. straight drop arm:

It just won't go on, though it's only a couple of mm from doing so.

This is it fitting perfectly onto the Defender arm - currently on the new steering box:

"A grinder based solution"?? I guess I think there are two or three places a tickle with a grinder could make a difference. In Yellow below - either the 'apex' of the puller - as Blanco did, or even on the arms of the puller. Of those, I think the apex version would do less to compromise the strength of the puller.

Then in red, I suppose it might be possible to take something off the box thread?? It is only a mm or so - but that doesn't really appeal to me much.

I think the biggest problem is actually questioning whether the puller, even if it fitted, will have a good enough grip of the lugs on the arm. As you can see from the first pic it looks like it would only be holding on by a couple of mm each side. I'd think there was potential there for it to slip off once tension was being applied??

A couple of exploratory taps with a hammer suggests the arm isn't in a hurry to come of the old box - and it's ff heavy. I don't have a vice big  or solid enough to hold that box securely. 

Hmm. A new arm is ca. £60 - but if tickling with existing puller is still looking too dodgy then I cut put that £60 towards a proper puller. 

Still very grateful for any advice or experience. 

Ta

[bishbosh]

I can't believe nobody has suggested just loosening the nut and going for a drive.......

[Retroanaconda]

Is there a reason you can’t use the defender type arm that’s fitted to the new box?

[Northwards]

Can't go for a drive because it failed its MOT last week. That and the fact that the steering box is now off the car. To be fair to myself I had all the tools, and a puller - I just hadn't realised that there was such a difference between the drop arms. 

I can't use the Defender one as I have the Gwyn Lewis conversion kit in place. I actually don't know if his drag link would would accept the ball joint 'receiver' from the original set up. Even temporarily that might be worth looking at - but on the other hand, when I removed the original drop arm I absolutely could not get the drag link ball joint out of it. It's still sitting on a shelf as an 'assembly' waiting for a rainy day. 

Because it's only been on for the two or three years since I fitted the GL kit, and because it's been bathed in ATF, I don't believe the Disco arm will be that tight at all. It's just a case of getting some grip on it. 

[steve b]

Take it to a local Ag repair workshop and get them to pull it off? 

Interesting to hear there are two part nos. for D1 TRE steering arms, didn't know that.

Steve

[FridgeFreezer]

I would grind a little off the tops, not the faces doing the gripping;

 

A little tickle in the apex for clearance is not going to cause the puller to fail specially if you make sure it's got a radius to it not just a square-edged cut. It's a very robust lump.

When I did this job I wound the puller up as tight as I dared, then heated the arm with a blowlamp plus some whacking with a hammer to encourage it to let go. The puller is there to keep it all under tension, if it's not coming off easily you're probably not going to get it off just by winding the puller up tighter and tighter.

[Retroanaconda]

Ah okay, I wondered if you might still have the drag link from the old defender setup laying about somewhere. It’s a different length to the disco one. Personally I don’t see the benefit in the Disco conversion but appreciate that many do.

With the box on the floor, can you get a big solid drift onto the tabs of the arm and belt it with a BFH? The box will move but maybe the weight of it will provide enough resistance to allow the shock of the blow to help?

If the box is scrap then get the arm nice and hot with a blowtorch and that will help too. It’ll knacker the seal but it looks like it’s pretty knackered already!

[Northwards]

Thanks guys. Food for thought there. The box is ‘scrap’ in the sense that it’s not going back on the car as it is now. I do plan, on another ‘rainy day’ to maybe take it apart and see how it works, and what state the internals are in just in case it can be usefully refurbished - but that’s secondary to getting the arm off. Hitting it with LR #1 tool sounds cathartic!

If I can get the grinder into the apex of the puller enough to smoothly take a smidge off there I’ll try that. It’s literally a mm or 2 would do it.

On the topic of the steering arm conversion that in itself wasn’t the reason for change. I was fitting the stainless ‘sumo’ track and drag link bars, and it just made sense to do the drop arm. I was aiming at tighter steering overall, and a more robust and easy to maintain set up. Ha! Obviously it’s easier to maintain in some ways, but not all.

[mickeyw]

19 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

I would grind a little off the tops, not the faces doing the gripping;

 

A little tickle in the apex for clearance is not going to cause the puller to fail specially if you make sure it's got a radius to it not just a square-edged cut. It's a very robust lump.

When I did this job I wound the puller up as tight as I dared, then heated the arm with a blowlamp plus some whacking with a hammer to encourage it to let go. The puller is there to keep it all under tension, if it's not coming off easily you're probably not going to get it off just by winding the puller up tighter and tighter.

Same thoughts here regarding where to remove the metal.

[JeffR]

2 hours ago, mickeyw said:

Same thoughts here regarding where to remove the metal.

Yup, my local specialists did just that.  They found out that their favourite puller didn't fit so a spot of grinder relieving was performed

[Northwards]

Well, thanks for the advice and moral support. Day’s gone more or less to plan.

two boxes minus steering arms.

Thankfully neither were really very tight on. I thought that I was going to have an issue removing the new Defender arm from the new box, but I resorted to judicial application of the the windy gun and off it came.

I couldn’t get the normal grinder into the back of the puller, but thankfully its big brother was on hand to sort it out. It really was only a small amount from the apex of the puller. I didn’t need to go near the arms themselves.

New box is now in car and connected.

As always, I do have another question, but I’ll post that somewhere else rather than take this one away from the drop arm question.

 

[B reg 90]

On 12/15/2022 at 10:40 AM, bishbosh said:

I can't believe nobody has suggested just loosening the nut and going for a drive.......

Once came back from Tom's farm in wales with a loose steering box arm that developed mid event. We stopped every 20 miles or so to re tighten the bugger. Seem to remember not having a big enough socket, so chiseling the nut around on the hard shoulder of the motorway....

 

Obviously I would not do that these days.....