andrewdonald1

Gents: I am in the middle of swapping out all of my bushings to poly in the C5Z and new upper/lower ball joints.

I've got the whole rear end apart and things are moving forward.
All of the OEM bushings are out on the back end.

I suspected I had either a bad right rear bushing in the CA or a bad ball joint.

Turns out I have a bad right lower CA ball joint.
I've pressed out the left rear lower ball joint no problem, but the right rear is NOT coming out.

I am using a c-clamp style ball joint removal kit. Don't have a press and am not going to purchase one today as its a purchase that I would rarely use other than a job like this that comes up once in a blue moon.

Does anyone have any tricks up their sleeves?
If not, I guess I'll have to wait till Monday to go to the machine shop and see if they can press it out.

RX-Ben

take it to a local shop with a press, should only take them a few min, maybe cost $10 or $15.

Solofast

Add some heat...

The aluminum will expand a lot more than the ball joint, so even if you can heat it up 100 degrees from where it is now that will help a lot...

Heat gun or take it and put it in the oven at 250 degrees, bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown... and that should do it.

andrewdonald1

Thanks guys. I got it.

I didn't have the right adapter available for the conical side of the ball joint so I was using a jerry rigged assembly (worked great for the first one).

Last ditch attempt, I decided to drill out the kit adapter from .5" id to 11/16" id.

BTW: standard loaner ball joint kits from Autozone do not have the correct adapter for the lower ball joints. It's too small of a ID (see above).
Without drilling it out, it fits the upper ball joints though.

Zip Corvettes

If you did not heat the control arm it is ruined. They were never made to replace the ball joints, that is why GM does not sell just the ball joint. I spent years sourcing these, but you have to heat the control arm or else the new ones will not have the same press fit as the original.

andrewdonald1

What?? Are you sure about this?????

Zip Corvettes

umm YES

andrewdonald1

Can you zip over to the below thread and give your educated response?
I seem to be getting conflicting information on the matter.
I appreciate you stepping up and helping ferret out a potential issue.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/auto...at-the-ca.html

Andy