Does anyone the best way to remove a ball joint that doesnt want to loosen up...............it is seiged up
First, make sure you are using at least a 4 lb, short handled hammer to hit the ball joint separator. (A mini sledge hammer). It doesn't matter how strong you are, if you use a 16 oz . regular hammer, it's sometimes not enough. I discovered this just this past weekend. Frank
Hi, I would jack the car up by the lower control arm and support the chassis with a jack stand, Remove the cotter pin and loosen the ball joint nut about half the way off the ball joint then lower the jack so you put the spring pressure on the ball joint turn the wheel all the way in either direction so you can either pop the ball joint with a ball joint fork or you can hit the side of the spindle on the side were the ball stud goes through, you must hit it hard and with a good size hammer. You will hear a good pop. Then jack the lower arm up to relieve the spring pressure on the ball joint and remove the nut.
I ran into this problem at my favorite salvage yard. We tried everything to break it loose (fork from front to back, back to front, outside to inside, letting the lower spring apply down-force, hitting it on side to side, soaking w/PB Blaster, etc.) I finally ended up breaking the lower bj loose and removing the spindle w/upper A-arm from the car. Due to the angle of the upper bj stud and the spindle itself, there was not enough room to get a 3 lb hammer to hit the stud. Never had this happen before. Yard manager said to bring it over to the side and he got out the oxy-acet torch and got the frozen bj out. He said he has seen it before and was glad to help out.
