How Not To Change A Ball Joint

[ratteber@speedfactory.net]

I have a 92 Classic that had a bad boot on the passenger side ball
joint.
After jacking up the car, putting it on jack stands and removing the
wheel, I removed the axle nut and the tie rod end. Using a punch, since
I didn't have a pickle fork, I drove the punch between the knuckle and
the control arm. I was hoping to use the loaner tool from Autozone to do
the swap right on the car. Wrong! After a lot of hammering and things I
don't care to mention, the new ball joint is in the control arm.

I see now that the way to do it is to remove the control arm. Not a big
deal. Using a 22mm wrench and socket on the bolt/nut where the control
arm pivots and removing the two bolts on the rearward part of the arm
will almost remove it. I had to loosen my anti-roll bar bushing to allow
the rear of the control arm to pull out.  Did you know that that part of
the arm is just a big ol' pressed on rubber(?) bushing? All that is left
is popping the ball joint loose like I said before and you could do that
first.

At this point in the future, I'll either take the control arm somewhere
to have the bad replaced with the good. Or, my buddy Jim figured out
that a 36mm socket fits perfectly for pressing the ball joint back in
using a vice. Getting the old joint out was easy. One swing of the
mini-sledge over a vice and it popped right out.

The goodness of removing the control arm is you don't have to futz with
the axle or the tie rod end.

Note: The ball joints I got from Autozone ($35) don't have the grease
fitting. I prefer that. Someone says the Moog joints have the grease
fitting. Also, have some good snap ring pliers.

Ron Atteberry
92 Classic with slightly damaged new ball joint boot