I'm planning to replace the balljoints on my Amazon one of the coming weekends. Phil's V-Classics article has provided a good foundation and I'm wondering if anyone else who has done this has any additional tips- like is there any little thing I'm going to get halfway through the job and realize I need? I have new poly bushings, but the one's on the car are IPD poly, so maybe I won't have to replace them this time, we'll see. I think they're at least 8 years old, which doesn't seem that old. The rubber boots are cracked on the ball joints and there is a little 'creakyness' in the front end, which is why I'm doing the joints. May replace the tie rod ends while I'm under there too.

I separated my VW vanagon front suspension with a pickle fork... Yup, the ball came out of the socket which was inconveniently still in the swivel arm. $90 later it was all better. The "ball joint press" kit the local parts shop will have is a c-clamp type arrangement that may or may not work for you.

The best I have come across is a "scissors" type press that does the job handily (I learned, it cost less than $90). I also have two different tie-rod splitters (like a two-arm puller but the arms are a heavy piece of steel and immobile) that work wonders on the smaller ball-joints and (of course) on tie-rods... larger one works on your pittman arms too (and is called a pittman arm puller, right).

I have never once had good luck with a pickle fork. I've had better luck loosening the nut and letting the spring do the work while I wailed on the swivel arm (loud noise when it lets go... don't take that nut all the way off!).

PB'laster may work but I never have the foresight or patience to let it do the work.

--
Mike!

OTOH, I've never had a pickle fork fail to split the joints. I don't pry at all, just drive the wedge between the two parts with a sledge.

What almost always works, and doesn't cause any damage to the parts at all, is a wee bit of spring tension and a lateral smack with a sledge on the part the joint is stuck into.

I did that recently, with surprising success, following Phil's excellent instructions. I agree with the prior posting that said use PBlaster now, not later; Also, if you're not saving your ball joints for reuse, rip off all the rubber seals so you can get a better placement with your pickle fork (if you are going that route), and PBlaster the hell out of everything days before you go at it. I didn't have the luxury of the fancier ball-joint removing tools, so went at it with a pickle fork I bought on E-bay for $15. I found that, oddly enough, Swedish steel is somewhat stronger and more resilient than Chinese pot metal; the only way the pickle fork did any good was to mash enough maleable Chinese mystery metal into a tight space that eventually the joint gave way. after removing a couple ball joints my pickle fork looks a lot more like a club than a fork, but it did the job.

Also, if your joints really stick, a propane torch (properly used) is invaluable.

As for the A-arms, be careful beating on the ends of the big bolts to get them out, or you can damage the threads and can't get the nuts back on. But if you do like some people suggest and leave the nut on to bang them out, you might do as I did and damage the nut so it won't go back on. Best thing to do is make sure you get a replacement nut with the nylon locking threads on one end, so you can destroy the old nut rather than the bolt and then just replace the nut.

I can furnish you a ball joint press which allows you to pop them out without
damage (although there is probably no point in doing so with them so old -
in your case I would use the "pickle fork"). Nice to use if you are just
disassembling and plan to reassemble the same parts, i.e to replace a spring.

I guess you know how much energy is stored in the spring so you want to be
pretty careful that it doesn't get away from you. Use appropriate jacks,
blocks or whatever so that you can let her down easy. Be sure and get the
shock absorbers out, the sway bar disconnected, etc before you get into the
serious stuff. Backing up on that job is quite a bit less than "fun".

If you are going to take the lower A-frames out you might want to be ready for
some heavy duty bolt removal. The long bolt sometimes gets rusted into place.
In any case grease it WELL before putting it back in to make the next time
easier.
--
George Downs Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!

Start soaking all connection points now. Get under there and spray loads of PB blaster on every nut, bolt and potentially siezed orifice.

Walrus covered the good points. The long bolt that holds the lower A arm in is always what gets me. Sometimes they come out easy, sometimes you have to hammer like a madman for hours to get it free.

There is a tool you can rent from autozone called a 'ball joint press'. They charge you $99, give you $99 when you bring it back. You can do it with the picklefork but this will make it a little smoother.

The upside of this tool is that it can be used with a decent assortment of large sockets as pushers and receivers for pressing the bushings in and out of your suspension bits. Real lifesaver on my carport.