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use the balljoint press tool, either rent it from autozone or buy one for real cheap from harbor freight.com it worked like a champ. You just need a big breaker bar to make your life easier with the press.
Press the old one out and then with the proper size sleeve press the new one back in. For me getting the new one in, was harder than getting the old one out. I can take pictures of my tool and show you the set up I used this evening.
1. jack up car, remove wheel
2. remove cotter pin and loosen ball joint nut but dont remove it.
3. pop ball joint loose from knuckle. you can use a pickle fork or use scott higashi's trick
Place a 12mm wrench above the nut (between the balljoin nut and the axle carrier) then use a wrench the loosen the nut with the wrench between the nut and the carrier. Since the 12mm wrench keeps the balljoint nut in place, everyturn on the nut force the balljoint down which will eventually pop free if you keep wrenching. It will take some force but it will eventually pop and you wont have to worry about splitting the ball joint boot. In this case it doesnt matter.
4. remove control are pivot bolt (toward front of car).
5. remove control arm bushing bracket bolts (toward rear of car)
6. remove control arm. ( you may have to loosen the sway bar bushing bracket to get enough clearance to pull the control arm out
7. Use the ball joint press and go to work, pop old one out and pop new one back in.
Install is reverse of removal. Balljoints were alot easier to do than I thought. Do not attempt to replace the ball joints without removing the control arm, it is a complete PITA and will take longer.
Last edited by Fonque : 07-29-2005 at 06:07 PM.
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