Both my lower ball joints are bad... I buy two lower control arms hoping to complete the job in an afternoon. Not until I tried to removed the ball joint. It was impossible to remove. I smacked it with sledgehammer and it didn't budge.

Any suggestions on how to remove the lower ball joint?

Thanks for the advice.

Use this as an excuse to get an air compressor and an air chisel with a pickle fork. You will never go back to doing suspension work without them!

John

Some good suggestions, I try and use the screw type of ball joint separator - less potential damage from hitting it with a hammer. Slide the joint separator between the ball joint and arm, tighten up the large bolt (the joint might come apart at this point anyway) and the hit the portion of the separator where it lays across the threaded part of the ball joint. If this does'nt work, tighten the separator a little more and try again. Should come apart eventually (I have broken separators though on stubborn joints!)
Good luck!

Go to Sears or PepBoys and get a ball joint removal fork tool. Wedge it between the knuckle and lower arm so that it goes around the ball joint, then take your hammer and pound on the fork tool, it will seperate the ball joint stem from the knuckle then you can remove the ball joint from the lower arm by removing the 3 nuts that hold it in there. Just pounding on the ball joint stem won't do anything but make you mad.


Mike
'95 850T

Did you remove the bolt from the spindle that goes across the machined recess on the control arm? I'm presuming you did. How about some good penetrating oil sprayed in that general area?

I'm speaking from experience on both parts...

Nate