NEW ball joints...and....

I need remove upper and lower control arms for bushings....so...

now to separate especially the uppers without the pickle fork and hammer that takes out the damn grease boot, that I can't find for replacement, and take a chance on messing up the joint to boot also....

need something that WORKS with no BSing around....

too old a CAN TANK erous to tolerate any messups....:shocking:

This is not fool proof, but I've used a 3 arm gear puller many times when the hammer method didn't work.. Reverse the castle nut and thread a few turns on the ball joint. It keeps the gear puller bolt from walking off the joint. I've messed up the nut before but not the ball joint. The boot usually gets wasted.

It is a little tricky to get the three arms in a good spot, but once it's on, i've not had a problem.....only wrecked one cheap gear puller.

Dunno what coil springs you have but if they're short like the 550lbs AND you're stubborn enough you COULD just pull the upper and lower arm with the spindle in one piece and then separate the ball joints on the workbench in a vice..... or just don't separate the pieces, just replace the bushings... not that I would recommend this method but ...... I guess it can be done....

The gear puller is your best choice, apply pressure and whack it with a hammer.... if they don't separate easy they might be due for replacement anyways ....

New Ball Joints....and....

I made a spreader bar with some hardware from lowes, to push from the lower A-arm, but that did not work too well. Similar to this from Savitske.



I ended up using a 2 jaw puller to get mine out last time.

Yellow73SB said:

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Yep. You can rent these at the Zone for free.

I used a tool, that they called a frog puller. I was something that ou could mount on top of the bolt, and then you would turn the bolt on the other side out. It would pinch the bolt out of the knuckle. I don't know how to discribe it, but it worked well.

Loosen the nut, put a big, BIG hammer on one side of the knuckle. Take a not so big hammer and smack the crap out of the other side directly across from it. 75% chance it'll pop.