How do you break the ball joints apart so i can put in the new spindle?? im struggling? any help/websites??
Just get new ones I tried reusing my old ones using a pickle fork and BFH cause someone said that they're easy to remove. After a couple of hours in the garage, the place looked like a murder scene with grease splattered everywhere. BJ's just would not budge. Do your self a favor... just get new ones and save yourself the headache
haha. thanks bro. wish i would of read this 4 hours ago. I was in a bind and needed to have the new ones on by tom. Wellll its dark, and no spindles are on. The local parts store has no ball joints in stock and im still stuck with the same ride height. Ill be getting at it next weekend. Im just gonna buy all new ball joints and save me some time.
you can use a ball joint press in order to save em but...... ive never run into the stuck issue with any of the one's ive done. a pickle fork type remover with a light coat of grease on both ends of the fork, a few light taps and they will come off too without damaging the boots..... if they are pretty old rotted and pretty much ready to go though, they will tear.
i smack and smacked... and ripped into the boots. fml. so im just going to replace them all. sounds like the ideal thing to do in my situation since they havent been replaced in forever. thanks for the help though fellas.
The absolute best way to get a balljoint loose is to first loosen the nut then hit the spindle on the side of where the balljoint goes through with a BFH and the balljoint will drop out.
+1 I do it all the time. not good for aluminum spindles (they're brittle, though it works even better on them) but steel/cast iron ones it works like a charm.
just make sure the nuts are off before breaking the BJ loose,,,i made the mistake once of threading the nut 3/4 of the way off,then popped it loose...when i tried to remove the nut,the whole joint spun,and i couldn't get vise grips or anything else on to hold it...a couple hours with a hacksaw finally did the trick...this was an emergency 'roadside' repair,so i had no access to power tools,etc.
