Ok, this is my first stab at the front suspension and my main focus was not to end up getting a darwin award dealing with coil springs.... which I managed to pull off ok

I am having issues with the ball joints though.

First - what's the best way to remove the lower ball joint from the control arm? No problem with the angled bolts, they came out no problem. So the only thing keeping it in place now is the nut on the zerk side of the ball joint. I tried breaking that nut loose and I'm afraid I'm going to round it out. Am I attempting this completely wrong? Is there something else I need to do to remove the old ball joint?

Second - The lower ball joint on the drivers side refuses to separate from the spindle. The spring is out, no tension keeping it in place. I've worked it over good with a pickle-fork, and also tried to separate it striking the locater tabs with a small sledge. After about an hour of hammering away, I threw up my hands, soaked it with PB and went to review the Van Steel video for anything I might have missed. After seeing theirs separate with 4 small whacks I about wanted to Anyone else ever have problems getting them to separate? Any advice to break it loose?

Thanks in advance

 

I use 2 4lb short handle sledge hammers to seperate them. I usually do this with them still in the car, just back the ball joint nut off a little and hold 1 hammer against one side of the boss and smak the hell outta the other side. Your past this point, so, hammer the pickle fork in between the joint and knuckle and then do the 2 hammer thing.

 

Thanks sixfooter, I'll give that a shot and see what happens

 

Did this last week, I used a tie rod puller and the ball joints popped loose easily.

 

I agree, I used a tie rod puller on all my ball joints. The only thing I had to do was put a c clamp on the open end of the tie rod puller to keep it from spreading open and falling off. When those things pop it sounds like you broke something but it worked great. I didn't get anywhere with the pickle fork either.

 

i have changed a dozens or so both 2 wheel and 4 wheel cars each one is different keep on whacking it with a hammer (5lb)and the change the fork heads with different angles as it goes deeper it will pop out make sure everything is supported under the control arm it will drop use a piece of wood on the jack to get a better grip 3/4 material the ones on my 68 were difficult to say the least i took the entire control arms out after i removed the springs use a spring compressor the inside type with a ratchet i would change the contol arm bushings and shafts (use offset shafts) at that point there easy to remove bring the a arm to a NAPA and give them the a arm and busings they will press them for you for $20 bucks

bob

 

Sounds like a tie rod puller could make my life easier, I'll check into one of those. Tonight I'll take another stab at it using the pickle fork and use some of your tips to see if I get lucky. I'm glad I didn't try the driver's side first, the other one was a piece of cake. Thanks for the tips guys!

Also found this article that has a few good tips for anyone else tackling this project.

http://www.corvettemagazine.com/content/view/77/

 

The method I used to use when I was a tech was to raise the vehicle up leave the spring in and back off both upper and lower ball joint nuts a couple of turns. Starting with the upper joint smack the side of the spindle where the ball joint taper passes through. The tension of the spring and the slight distortion of the taper allows the ball joint to pop free. Repeat on the lower.

Norm

 

thanks for the shots akruizer fixing to do the bushing thurs .

 

Well, she's still being stubborn

Tried to hammer away using 2 hammers with the fork in place and she just wont give. Decided to raise it up and secure it with the upper ball joint nut, I have about 1" for it to drop before it will catch the nut... definitely easier to work on, probably safer too. Hope to get my hands on a gear/tie rod puller soon.

I think I have more time into this one ball joint than I do the rest of the front end at this point Took a break from the ball joint and removed the busings from the cooperative control arm on the other side. I have the bushings completely removed and can't quite see how to get that control arm shaft out of there. Any suggestions?

 

Glad to help... I know I need all I can get

 

I just did this job...Lots -o-fun!

I have 2 different sized pickle forks, one is slightly wider than the other.

I found that I had to alternate between the two to get the lower ball joint to separate from the spindle. I cant remember for sure, but I think the wider fork gave me better results. Probably took about 50 wacks per side to get them to go, but they came apart. The real fun starts when you try to remove the lower balljoints from the control arm .

Drilling out the rivets, then punching them with a 2 lb engineers hammer was FUN!!!

Use a 1 inch hole saw to drill out most/all of the rubber bushing-depending on how deep your 1 inch hole saw is. You may need to use a drill to hog out the rest of the bushing (I broke several bits). The trick is to get the arm to move freeley while the shaft is held in the vise. No rubber is connecting the two any longer. Then you can walk out the inner sleeve easily with hammer/punch or chisel and collapse the outer shells to walk them out as well. The outer are much more difficult than the inners IMHO.

If you are using new rubber bushings, put them in the freezer and use moly engine assembly lube on inner and outer sleeves to get them to slide on with a VERY large socket that fits over the bushing and rests on the bushing lip. Clean up the control arm holes and shafts with fine grit sandpaper so they are mostly nice and shiney. They slide in very nicely with the arm just resting on the vise (covered with a cloth to minimize paint damage on the CA -of course). No press is needed at all. I used black appliance epoxy paint from the Home Depot and they came out looking spectacular.

The shafts should rotate freeley in the installed bushings if the arms are staight.

I also cut 1/2 coil to lower the front -while I was at it....

B....

 

Brent - Glad you survived it alright

Haven't found the right combination with the different sized forks yet, don't know if I made it to 50 whacks, but I do know I've beat the hell out of it, the shaft for the pickle forks is mushroomed out quite nicely now. I'm not thinking brute force will prevail this time around.

I took a similar approach as Brent with the bushings, but I used a small drill bit and gave the old busings the swiss cheese treatment. After plugging the bushing full of holes and with the cross shaft clamped down in the vice, I could move the arm 180 degrees back and forth about a dozen as the old bushing crumbled to pieces and fell right out.

Thanks for the tip on the sleeves, sounds like that is what I was missing to remove the shaft. Hopefully I'll get to try that out tomorrow. I've been curious about the epoxy appliance finish paint as well, sounds like it worked out well for you. My original thought was to take them to the powder coater, but these "while your at it's" are starting to get expensive

I'll keep rolling.. thanks for the info!!