Ball joint removal help?

[Ricklandia]

DUMAS question: I'm replacing my ball joints. I removed the steering knuckle bolts and dropped the torsion arm down to get at the ball joint castle nut. the ball joint is severly stuck in place. I have a ball joint fork, but what I want to know is if it's safe to bolt back up the steering knuckle so I can slam it out? My tie rod ends were stuck bad enough that I had to put a torch on the arm to break it free. I don't have a solid bench or bench vise to do it off the car. Does anyone have a suggestion to break free the ball joint on the car, or is it time for me to invest in a decent bench and vise?

[Bambikiller240]

Bolt it all together (with the ball joint to steering knuckle nut left off) and grab your pickle fork and a BFH and go to it. One or two solid whacks ought to do it.

BTW, I would still encourage you to build a stout workbench and to buy a good vice. They make many jobs so much easier to deal with.

[Ricklandia]

Thx Carl. what I'm worried about is if I need to put heat to it like I did with the tie rod ends. I pounded on them for damn near a 1/2 hour before I had to break out the propane torch to heat things up. I removed the rubber o-ring, I'm just worried that the heat might not be good for the strut casing if I need to fire up the torch again. The front suspension looks like it's never been touched, the balljoints look like they're in there but good. I've been soaking them in WD40 for days but I don't think it's gonna help much.

A bench will be nice one day but I don't think it can happen for a while, unless I'm forced into it by this job. Anyone ever have to put a torch to get their ball joints out?

[Bambikiller240]

Well, you shouldn't have to heat the strut tube. I'd only heat from the bottom (i.e. heating the ball joint and the steering knuckle).

Oh, another thing, forget about using WD40, it's crap.

PB Blaster (available at stores) or my favorite product, KROIL (available by mail or internet from www.kanolabs.com) are the only products to use. They far outperform anything else on the market

[Bambikiller240]

PS Hopefully you don't have new strut cartridges installed yet. If the old cartridges are still installed there should be no reason to worry about heat transferred to the strut tube at all since there is no reason to heat it directly. (If you do have new cartridges installed already I'd have to ask WHY?)

[Ricklandia]

No new cartridges. I was just thinking about heat transfer to the tube from the knuckle itself. The tube seemed to be fairly thin cased. Thx for the advise.

[drunkenmaster]

I used a ball joint seperating tool which had two fingers which locate on the knuckle and a opposing third finger which pushed the ball joint through by winding a bolt on the opposite side. Worked great for the ball joints, popped them right out after sufficient pressure/winding. I used this tool as I could not find the pickle forks which seem to be so popular in the states.

I also used this to seperate the outer tierod joints front the knuckle but not without destroying the tool as they were well and truly seized. The head of the bolt sheared off the tool before the joint would pass though, however the tool, firmly clamped in place made an excellent striking point for the BFH, which did the job in the end.

[abas]

I used a ball joint seperating tool which had two fingers which locate on the knuckle and a opposing third finger which pushed the ball joint through by winding a bolt on the opposite side. Worked great for the ball joints, popped them right out after sufficient pressure/winding. I used this tool as I could not find the pickle forks which seem to be so popular in the states.

I bought one similar to this years ago, and it has been worth its weight in gold to me. It is also the most requested tool by far to borrow by my fellow car nuts. I never had any success with the pickle fork type, although others obviously have.

Only problem I have found is when a seized 30 year old ball joint finally lets go when using the '3 finger' type it tends to go with a bang and you can get hit by flying tools/balljoints.

Andrew

[drunkenmaster]

Here is a pic of what I used as described above, no heat was required where as the tierod ends required an oxy torch at a suspension shop to get them glowing before they would move on the rack thread.