I was resetting the ride height on my Rossa today and noticed that the rubber dust covers on the knuckle joints are perished and split already - they have only been on for a couple of years or so but the car has never been on the road yet so to say that I'm not pleased would be an understatement To use the suspension compressor tool would mean removing both subframes and that is a major job which I have no wish to carry out. I have been thinking about removing the rubber buffer from below the top suspension arm (for extra clearance), screwing the HiLo right up and trying to lever the cone up somehow to get the joint out to replace the rubber (they're only £1 each) but, before I break something, has anybody done tried this already and can it be done? Thanks.

You can usually remove Mini cones by taking the top arm out, don't see why it shouldn't work on the Rossa.
Remove the rebound rubber, disconnect arm from the hub, pull out the pivot pin. That should give you enough wiggle room to pull the arm out, especially if you screw the hi-lo in as you suggested.

that should work raymond, I have done it that way myself wind down th ehilo and remove the rebound rubber, then removed the top arm,

be careful tho make sure the rubber cone/hilo are not still under load before you remove the top arm pin.

Neil

Try using a bottle jack under the shock absorber to take the weight
of the car and compress the cone as much as possible.
Release the top ball joint and the hub will drop enough to replace the dust cover
or release the lower joint to lower the bottom arm.
I'm going from memory but I think that's how I used to do it.

Ah yes, that gets quite painful

The voice of experience........

Thanks for all that. I didn't consider removing the pin because I though that it would be under load so that's great I've cheered up a bit now because I'm fed up having to redo things because of poor quality parts. As far as dust covers go I've already had to replace them on both track rod ends using some off old ends that I had lying about but which were obviously made from much better material and also the rebound rubbers have gone spongy as well

The car's 95% finished now (touch wood ) and it's high time that I updated my thread under Projects. I'll do that once I get some photos downloaded but, for some reason, my laptop and camera have stopped speaking to each other At the moment I'm aiming for the IVA test in the Spring but don't quote me.................