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Ball Joints ... thank God that's over !!

knicko

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Joined
Dec 23, 2012
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126
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uk
Had to replace the squealing brake pads and thought I'd hit a few jobs at the same time, with a shopping list at Roughtrax ... new discs, pads all round, handbrake shoes, track rod ends, steering rack bush kit, and given the mileage has just gone round 140000, upper and lower ball joints.

To be fair, some of the anticipated problems didn't materialise. The eight 14mm bolts holding the lower ball joint units came undone fairly easily and the stud holding the steering rack saddle bush came out without shearing off the 10mm end. To be fair, I did liberally spray everything with release fluid the night before I started the jobs, and gave them all another spray every time I walked past 'em.

The upper ball joints were a 'challenge' and many new words were created during the process of removing the old ones and also pushing back in the new ones. The irony wasn't lost on me that it's the lower joints that tend to fail and I probably could have left the uppers alone!

It would surely have been quicker and less frustrating in the long run to remove the hubs from the vehicle and thus have access to a workshop press.

That said, once I had got the right tools to do the pulling and pushing, progress moved along at a better pace. If anyone else wants to change them in situ, here's how I did it in the end:

REMOVAL OF OLD JOINTS

Separate the ball joint from the upper wishbone. You will need a proper chisel type ball joint splitter for this. The small scissor type one I bought wasn't long enough to reach the ball joint past the edge of the wishbone (same problem with the lower joint actually). Once free, lever the tall upright arm of the swivel hub outwards but be careful not to strain the ABS sensor cable (better to detach the cable from its brackets to give more slack).
Pull the arm towards you so you can see what you are doing. Don't worry if the driveshaft slides out, it will go back in ok (thanks Bob Murphy for that advice).
I then took an angle grinder and cut the top part of the ball joint off. If you use the top flat edge of the swivel hub arm as a guide for the blade and go carefully, you can cut the ball joint nice and level which will make it easier to press against later. You will know when you have cut through the ball joint case as you will see the ball spinning as the blade hits it. Keep working your way round the whole circumference and the top part will come off. The ball can be pulled out and also remove the two pieces of plastic that sit under the ball.
Then use a punch to hammer down through the bottom of the unit (which is a thinnish cap). You will now have created a hole right through from top to bottom. Only a ring of steel remains inside the surface of the hub arm.
I wasted hours heating this with a 2KW heat gun and then butane gas torch, hitting the steel ring from the top. It would not budge. Some dog walker going by took pity on me and made me up a simple extractor, which had both sides done in less than two minutes!
The extractor was two pieces of stout tube, one that sat on top of the steel ring (remains of the ball joint casing) and the other slightly larger tube to sit underneath the arm and around the outer edge of the ball joint casing. Then add the biggest heftiest bolt that will fit down through the middle, some big washers and a nut - after a bit of tightening, there was a loud crack and the old joint started pulling down through the arm... happy days!

FITTING NEW JOINTS

Used a Dremmel to polish off the old crud from inside the mating surface of the arms, to get them back to shiny metal. Worth doing this because the new units are a really tight fit ... not a 'tap into place' by any means.
Take the rubber boot and nut off the new ball joint and poke it up through the hub arm. I then had a mate make up another nut/bolt powered press. The tube on the top needs to be bigger than the joint circumference and tall enough to take the shaft of the ball joint while it is being pressed through. The bottom tube needs to sit on the outer edge of the bottom case (do not press against the raised cap as it is not strong enough for this process). Sandwich the two tubes between two pieces of strong steel plate and run two hefty bolts down the outsides, so that as these are would up, they squeeze the bottom tube (and hence the new ball joint) upwards.
The tricky bit was getting it started straight, as if the joint casing starts to go in a bit wonky, it won't budge. Wind the two bolts up a bit at a time on each side and I found that releasing the 'press' and rotating it a bit now and again helped to keep pulling the joint in evenly. Once things start to get really tight, I gave a few bangs to the underside of the bottom steel plate and then go back to the spanners... this will give you another half turn. It takes a bit of patience but eventually the new joints will pull up tight to the underside of the arm.
I didn't use any heat during the fitting of the new joint as I feared boiling the grease in the new units.
Then poke a load of grease around the ball, fit the rubber boot and push the threaded end up through the upper wishbone.
I had already done the lower joints, so to get the upper wishbone down enough to get the nut on top of the ball joint (I was on my own), I used a ratchet strap to pull the upper and lower wishbones together.
Don't forget to reattach the ABS sensor cable to the arm.

Hope this helps.

Start on the back end tomorrow!
 
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Well done on doing this al yourself - I have neither the time, patience or ability, but I know a man who can (Landrover man too!) but he does a good job for half the price of a rubbish French mechanic job!
 
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