Well, I have been working on the $100 EA81 coupe I bought from Milemaker for a while now. It started out needing a ball joint, but then I broke the axle and strut(leading) rod. Got a used leading rod and had an EA81 axle lying around so now I have everything I need, but I have one little problem; the ball joint won't line up with the control arm, it is a good half of an inch off of it. I'm not entirely sure I have the axle all the way through the knuckle, so I am going to tighten the nut a bit. But should that fail me, I could definately use some advice?

Sounds like you may have got some EA82 parts mixed up in there. The axles look very similar and will bolt in, but the EA82 axle is longer, and has a different diameter on the sealing surface for the inside of the knuckle.

 

That's my best guess anyway. And it's happened to people before. I still get confused when I pull out a mystery axle from the depths of the garage. Have to compare it to one I know the origin of.

 

GD

Oh, I certainly hope not... The guy I bought my hatchback I had gave it to me with it and said it was a spare, but he was kind of weird, so who knows. I compared it to the old axle and it seemed the same, but the old one had fallen apart on me, so there may have been small differences. I'll see if it wants to go in yet, but if not it would make sense, as I have done ball joints on these before and I definately do not remember fighting with it this much.

As I said they look so similar as to be nearly indistinguishable unless you look closely at the diameter of the inside seal surface, and the compressed length of the whole axle. But you have to compress both of them to check the length. They will bolt up but are real hard to make fit properly when it comes to connecting the control arm. EA81's and EA82's share the exact same knuckle design, and the same transmission spline count - even the front wheel bearings are the same part number. The length is the only real difference.

 

GD