I had no problem separating the ball joint with a hammer - leaving the nut on a few threads is a good idea. If it doesn't come apart with a couple of whacks, then consider a pickle fork - you won't know until you get there. When installing the new one it is a good idea to put a small jack underneath to help things to seat and stay stationary while you put the nut on. I did this on the car rather than in a vise. I'm just telling you what I did, don't take this as necessarily the "right" way of doing it.

Randy pretty much hit it on the head. On one mine, I did have a heck of a time getting the old ball joint out, though. I didn't have a pickling fork and had to resort to using a pulley puller that I clamped to the ball joint housing with the shaft of the puller on the ball joint thread. Leave the old nut partially on to guide the shaft. The other ball joint was a lot easier, I just backed the nut off of the old ball joint, set the assembly in the vice with ball joint shaft pointing up, and whacked the end of the ball joint shaft with a BMF hammer and it popped right out.

As far as torqueing down the new ball joint, I also don't have an impact gun, so I used 2 pieces of 2x4 with a hole drilled near the end of one of them that would allow my 19mm socket to fit through it. I put the new ball joint in the housing with the shaft of the new ball joint sticking through the hole in the 2x4, and put the other piece of 2x4 on the backside of the ball joint assembly. Putting the other ends of the wood into my vice so that the 2 pieces of 2x4 looked like a "V" with the top of the "V" holding the ball joint assembly. Tightening the vice put enough pressure on the mating surfaces that I was able to crank the ball joint nut down with no problem.

When I reassembled everything, I had to wedge a piece of wood (yeah, I've got a lot of wood lying around) between the a-arm and the frame of the car to push the arm down to get everything to align again.

One of these days I've got to get some air tools.

Good luck

Matt,

The ball joint is held to the a-arm with three 19mm bolts and it is held to the bottom of the strut tube with four 12mm(?) bolts. Once it is removed from the car you will need to remove the part of the assembly that was bolted to the strut tube and attach it to the new ball joint. Removing it is a simple procedure of holding that part of the assembly in a vice and removing a nut (19mm?). However, when you attempt to attach that piece (the one that bolts to the bottom of the strut tube) to the ball joint you will find that it sometimes provides a challenge. It can be difficult to get the piece to "grasp" the ball joint enough to be tight enough to turn the nut without the piece slipping on the ball joint. I usually clean up the mating surfaces with lacquer thinner and tap the piece on (it is a tapered fit). It is a reverse of the removal in that you hold it in the vice by the piece that bolts to the bottom of the strut. When you apply torque to the nut there is no way to keep the threaded portion from turning other than the friction between the two pieces. This is much easier with an impact wrench. A series of quick pulls of the trigger seem to do the trick. Good luck.

Randy