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Front Ball joint replacement

34K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  Jasen 
#1 ·
I'm replacing the ball joints on my 2003 Sierra 1500 2wd. I haven't been able to press out the top ball yet, even with a 3' breaker bar on a ball joint press, but I've been a little hesitant, so maybe tomorrow: It's not a replacement AFAIK, and there's no snap ring. Anyway, I'm looking at the new ones and the rubber boot is a larger diameter, by a margin, than the press-in surface. So do I just force it through the hole when I get ready to press it in? I don't think it comes off easily...

Also: I'm trying to get the rivets off on the bottom (I'm hoping to do this without removing the upper and lower control arms). They don't come easily even after I've drilled off either or both heads. I haven't tried heat yet, is that typically necessary? Or is it really necessary to remove the control arms and do this stuff on a press? I don't like compressing springs...

Thanks for any advice.

keith
 
#2 ·
Damn ball joints, they can be a bitch! Are u trying it with no pressure on the springs, cuz what helped me was to jack up the lower control arm a little to put some pressure on the ball joint. I've tried every method there is, from heat to Break Free lubricant (which did help). Hell, I've even tried heat on the knuckle and ice water on the ball joint, Lol! On one side, I even gave up and took the whole damn control arm and spindle off together and took it to to my alignment guy. He snapped it out in about 5 min. If I had done that in the first place, I would've saved myself about half a day. Don't be too proud to do that, ;).

Edit: Not sure about the rivets, but my truck is an nnbs, so I know its a little different. Mine has coil-overs so I don't need a spring compressor to take off the control arms and spindle. Hope u get it worked out.
 
#5 ·
I did eventually consider replacing the control arms: cheap-wise (and I am) control arms at their cheapest are perhaps $40-50 each with ball joints (each upper and each lower: much more most of the time). If I was sure I could get what I needed, AND knew how hard these were to deal with, I might have gone that way. The problem is, the lower control arm requires removing the spring, and it's a BIG spring: I'm not really confident in my spring compressor handling that spring. I got all my front-end parts in an ebay package, something like $120 for all 4 ball joints, and both tie rods (both ends), and the idler arm, so they were really cheap -- I'm really in the red right now, so I've had to go super cheap on this, I'll probably regret it later but hopefully that will be when I have a little money... My mechanic later told me he would have put on all the ball joints and the tie rods (and maybe the shocks) for $350 labor, which I might have done if I'd known what I was getting into, though I think he couldn't be making money at that rate. I think he's being nice to me... I suspect $600-1000 is more like reasonable labor for that, though he wasn't including the hubs.

Eventually I realized that I could take the upper control arm off easily, and then I could press out the old upper ball joint and press in the new one on my shop press (after I'd bent my ball joint press, of course). It took a LOT of force to get the ball joint out, there was no chance my ball joint press could have done it (if I'd heated the arm, I think it might have been possible).

Getting the upper arm out of the way gave me much more access to the rivets that I had to drill out below. But that was still hard work (actually, I've only done one side so far)... even after I've cut off both heads, I couldn't get the rivets out with a 3# sledge and a drift punch. So I drilled about 3/4 of the way down through the rivets, and THEN used the punch: that way, it tended to counteract the swaging of the rivet stem in the ball assembly, vs. contributing to it. It was still hard to get them out, in all 4 cases. And I'm not really happy about the fit of the new ball joint, before I tighten down on the 4 bolts there's definitely some play. Another reason to get a new control arm. If I do it again (or if these become loose), I'll probably go that way.

As an aside, pulling the hub off the spindle was an ordeal too. What I eventually did, after a fair bit of beating on it with no progress, was take my 10-ton porta-power, using the little shoe-horn jack (which is rated at 1000#), positioned it on one side between the hub and spindle (to provide constant background pressure, and to counteract twisting forces) and then beat on the other side. It came off eventually with that approach. We'll see if the other side goes any smoother.

Well, I just wanted to document progress so far. I'm about to start putting together the first side this afternoon, and I'm hoping to start taking apart the second side too... I haven't been able to get the shock off yet, since the bolt/stem just spins, but I haven't spent much time on it. I don't have air tools, I suspect an impact wrench, air chisel, etc. would make some of these things go smoother.
 
#6 ·
Quick note: in general, I notice that control arms with ball joints are more like $100 upper and $200 lower, or $600 for just the parts. I paid maybe $60 for the ball joints. So they really were quite a bit cheaper. So as long as you've got lots of tools and your time is worth absolutely nothing, it's a great deal...

Or, you have a personality flaw that requires you to do virtually everything yourself, at least the first time... or, you ascribe value to the learning process... so what if your wheels fall off on the highway :eek:
 
#7 ·
one other quick point: the upper ball joints were made such that the boot had to be removed to press them into place. The boot itself was pressed on in a way that made it hard to remove, and literally impossible to get back on in the same way afterwords (as far as I could figure out). I'm going to try to confirm, when it's all together, that I think it's okay, but I definitely didn't like that part. Better quality ball joints are probably worth it in this regard (I got what I paid for).
 
#8 ·
Yup. The best way I have found is to replace the entire control arm. Here is a Moog premium line part with the boot installed. Its a special boot and its the best way to go if you want to get 100k miles out of the parts. Cost 179 per side. I made a sweet video on replacement also! I hope it helps someone out.
~shaun
 
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