|
All I can really say is, each technique works... sometimes. I find the pickle fork to be the most reliable thing for removing ball joints and tie rod ends from their wedged-in places.
I have a quite narrow pickle fork, and an older wider one that I picked up somewhere. Neither one always works all the time, but they both work well for all joints on RWD Volvo. My good one is a Craftsman, btw. Sold as a tie rod end tool but works great for nearly all ball joints found on cars these days. SOme trucks have quite large hardware and fortunately I don't have to take them apart for a living.
Hitting the part of the steering arm where the tie rod attaches does work, sometimes. I think it works only on the ones that woulda come out anyway; other people swear by it. Large hammer or 2 required to make it work. You actually need to hit it hard enough to flex the casting slightly! When it works, there's no risk of cutting the rubber joint boots, as there is with the fork. Tradeoffs.
Note that doing this job you're going to need to disconnect the brake lines or else keep the strut close enough to the car to avoid damaging them. Unbolting brackets may help but still not allow you to take the strut completely clear of the car. Also, you may want to remove the sway bar end link so that the lower control arm swings free. This is part of what's fighting you at the ball joint: with the left wheel jacked up (hanging down) and the right wheel compressed (bearing all the weight, compressed into fender) the sway bar tries to equalize the position of the two sides- result is a hard upward push on the side you're working on.
A long piece of wood or a long bar can be used to push down the arm to get the control arm to disengage from the sway bar. This will make life a lot easier, until you forget to line up the sway bar link on reassembly. Good luck with it1
--
::: Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: 92 244 ::: 90 745GL ::: 90 745T ::: 84 242DL ::: 90 745T Parts ::: Used to have : 86 244DL, 87 244DL, 91 244, 88 244GL, 88 744GLE, 82 245T, 86 244DL, 87 244DL, 88 245DL, 89 244DL!
|
