Ball Joint Removal?

[RFaber]

Oh, and for the love of all things sacred, use some anti seize compound on the new ball joint! Sounds like you have the entire forum board cheering you on here! Good luck!!!

[stiubhartach]

I spent two days trying to get mine out. I tried every technique and several tools. I finally gave up and bought the right one. It was out in 5 minutes.

This is the one I bought. It's bigger than the same style from harbor freight and grand auto. It might be the same as the Honda tool.

https://shop.ktcautotools.com/produc...puller-e53-e83

[Lamby]

I also spent two day getting mine out. I am very decent with an angle grinder but even still I would advise EXTREME CAUTION with my method.

Okay, so you use your big grinder to cut the ball out of its socket from underneath, then the boot will smell a bit as you cut through. Start by opening cuts front and back (in line withe the trust arm) of the joint so its easy then to remove the ball from the housing. Then there is a plastic gasket inside the joint to remove. Once that is done and you are down to bare metal inside the joint you can use a dremel with a disc cutter for extra precision and cut a grove from the inside of the disc left to right careful not to go more than the width of the ball joint housing (4-5mm). The Dremel will be good enough to do the job, it takes time so cover your eyes and face and wrap up warm if your on a cold floor. Once you have a grove, I then use a impact wrench on the top of the ball joint and a 9lb short handle hammer 3 large wacks and it came off.

Lots of swearing, time and patients for this job unless you want to dismantle the entire show and get easier access.

On install I used some copper grease to the new ball joints but I figure that when I need to replace again they will be still an absolute pig to remove.

Hope that helps

[oldskewel]

Originally Posted by stiubhartach

I spent two days trying to get mine out. I tried every technique and several tools. I finally gave up and bought the right one. It was out in 5 minutes.

This is the one I bought. It's bigger than the same style from harbor freight and grand auto. It might be the same as the Honda tool.

https://shop.ktcautotools.com/produc...puller-e53-e83

I had a very similar experience on my 2001. Ended up using just the right tool, similar to the one shown there, and it made it easy. But I think the current problem is not with that part of the job.

That tool will separate the control arm from the ball joint. When I did mine, that was the hard part.

But I think for this issue, the control arm has already been removed from the ball joint, and now the task is to simply remove the ball joint from the knuckle, where it is pressed in lightly and secured with two Torx screws. For my 2001 with ~170k (all in CA), it was no problem at all. But it sounds like for many others it practically welds itself in there.

Regarding the grinder plan (and some other more extreme ideas), I would be very careful about damaging the knuckle. You'd hate to finally get it out of there and realize you gouged and deformed the hole so the replacement will not fit.

[oldskewel]

Here's a question / new idea ...

Do the holes from the two Torx screws that hold the ball joint go all the way through the knuckle? More specifically, can you thread those screws in from the back side?

If you can do that, I'd make a little plate that can push the right-sized socket from the back side to press the ball joint out, tightening the screws in parallel to press the joint out. I'm generally concerned about collateral damage in cases like this, and go for the more finessed solution. If this is possible, and if it has a chance to work, the #1 goal while doing it is to keep things aligned (the socket, and both screws tightening) with the bore of the ball joint. If you are pressing and it is not aligned, you'll be making the problem harder for yourself.

If you can only get one screw in, but not two, maybe you can lever against that one. Pressing can be very different from hammering sometimes.

If neither are possible, I'd go the slide hammer route, mainly since that gives you the best chance of getting it off without damaging the knuckle. You'll want to eliminate as much compliance as possible in the area to make this work, and align the slide hammer with the bore hole.


EDIT - another idea, a little more things to do, but almost () guaranteed to work:
- Get some longer screws that will fit into the existing two holes.

- Get/fabricate/hack together a plate with two holes in it to fit those two longer screws (through holes), and a third hole to fit the ball joint stud (through hole).

- Use the two long screws along with a couple of nuts to hold the plate a couple of inches away from the ball joint (as close as possible, but far enough for the following to work ...). Adjust as best as you can to make the plate perpendicular to the ball joint bore hole

- Use the original ball joint nut (castle nut?) on the ball joint stud (which is protruding through its hole in the plate) to gradually tighten.

- Hopefully the two screws keep things aligned, and the ball joint nut will provide a steady, aligned, *pulling* force (which in cases like this is always better than a pushing force, since it is self-aligning vs. self-binding). If you are unable to stop the ball joint stud from spinning while torquing it, then just tighten it as well as you can with the other screws+nuts loose, and then apply the separating force by carefully alternating between the two nuts.

- As I usually do with separating things like this, I'd get things loaded up with a good reasonable amount of force, then tap with a hammer to hopefully provide something to trigger the actual separation.

[Scott ZHP]

Originally Posted by oldskewel

Here's a question / new idea ...

Do the holes from the two Torx screws that hold the ball joint go all the way through the knuckle? More specifically, can you thread those screws in from the back side?

One is drilled through, the other is blind. You cannot thread them in from the top, as the half-shaft is in the way.

[wfwright2]

On my 2002 the mounting screw holes went through the knuckle. The replacement ball joints came with new longer screws and self locking nuts

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[wfwright2]

I gave up after 3 days of heck, gave to shop who said it was hard to do, but did not give up trade secrets.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[X53Jay4.8is]

Originally Posted by wfwright2

I gave up after 3 days of heck, gave to shop who said it was hard to do, but did not give up trade secrets.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

They probably used the air chisel method. Very effective when you have seized in suspension components.

[upallnight]

Originally Posted by X53Jay4.8is

They probably used the air chisel method. Very effective when you have seized in suspension components.

If you have the right tools, any job is fairly easy.