Questions - Never done this before and need to replace the ball joints as I forgot to grease them when I moved the car for the first time under it's own power. Ripped the boots on a couple. Guess my big question is, does the front shock hold the spring from flying out? so that you can lift the upper and lower the lower control arms out of the way to replace ball joints? What is the proper procedure? Do them one at a time meaning do the top and connect back to spindle before removing the bottom? or do them at the same time meaning so the spindle can come off? Thanks, Nick
I wont trust the shock to hold the spring in, seeing as I have unbolted shocks before and had them come apart. Support the lower control arm with a jack stand. Then you can safely do them both at the same time.
Thanks! Yes, been reading up on it. Plan is to put frame on jack stands and then use my floor jack with a few pumps to support the lower control arm...With that in place, back off the upper castle nut and and give it a wrap with a hammer to loosen the ball joint and then back the castle nut off fully off. Question here, will he upper control arm loosely flop up and down so that I can change the upper ball joint? Or will the spring blow it up? Next question is, how do you change the lower joint? Question, do I need to have the floor jack in a position that holds the lower a arm from flying out but allows me access to press out the lower ball joint? And then do the same as above? Back off lower castle nut a turn, wrap with a hammer to loosen lower ball joint, and then completely remove nut. Does the upper ball joint need to be connected? or can that be loose and then the spindle comes out so I have room to rent a press for the lower ball joint?
Don't hit the top of the ball joint stud, hit the side of the knuckle with a small sledge hammer. That will dislodge the stud from the taper. I would put the jack stand under the control arm, inboard enough to give you access. I would just replace the boots if you can.
Yes, hit the knuckle. Interesting, did not know the boots could just be replaced. I'm assuming I still need to loosen everything up to get at them? I don't think the boots are actually ripped, they look to be unseated from the a arm, so I assumed they tore at the bottoms. I'm guessing whomever my body shop had to replace them, did a bad job. They are brand new ball joints, so the tops are already bolted in. I have a lower on the driver side and an upper on the passenger side that look like the boots came unseated. Guess I need to jack up, remove the tires and see if I can push the boots back down into the a arm on one side and push the boot up into the top. Didn't think that was possible. Assumed I needed new ball joints (already bout a replacement set from Todd).
The lower boots have a slight press over the balljoint. They can be a pain to install. There is no reason to replace the entire balljoint, it would take about 5 minutes to get the boots into place.
I worked in a Pa. inspection station for 2 years and changed a lot of ball joints. I thread a chain under the axle of the floor jack and around the upper control jack for safety. Loosen the castle nut, back-up the spindle eyelet where the ball joint pin is with a 5 pound hammer head while hitting the other side with a large ball peen jammer. This will break the taper hold of the pin to spindle. Then relax the jack and put slack in the chain keeping some tension on the lower control arm and slip spindle out of the ball joint pin. The upper control arm can now be blocked out of the way. If the ball joint is sloppy and you end up replacing it, there are 2 kinds of ball joints : "standard" and "repair" ball joints. If the ball joints have been replaced before, the hole in the control arm may be over size and will not provide a secure enough press fit with a standard ball joint, at that point a "repair" ball joint which is a few thousandths oversize must be used.
You will need to unbolt the upper to drop the boot cage down, slip new boot in cage and re-bolt. The lower should slip over the ballpoint.
