Remove knuckle/hub to remove fr ball joint?

[ProwlerGT]

Hey, I cleaned up a bit around the cv bracket and its intact, but I did find that it looks like something impacted it at one spot. Take a look - Cause for concern? Would that have been a very FORCEFUL impact or does it not take much to dent it there?



I guess on the former note I'll just lower the car and when its down on the ground I'll ensure that the top ball joint nuts are still tight.

[ProwlerGT]

Do I have the setup for removing the ball joint wrong? I am in the middle of it now ( HELP ! ):

Is this C clamp setup correct? I ask because I'm encountering dead stop force. Should I continue with it how it is setup?


Here's the whole setup for how I'm situated to get to the ball joint with jack stands at lowest level.


Here's what the ball joint looks like with the dust over removed which reveals the circlip. I found you can use a snap ring tool by itself without an attachment end and it just barely spreads the clip out enough to pull it directly upwards as you are using the tool.

[JeffWVR4]

From what i can tell, you have it set up right. As long as the spacer on the bottom is large enough in diameter, the joint should press out and down through the bottom spacer. I never had much luck pushing down on the shaft like your pic shows, but it looks like you have a better setup than me. If that doesn't work, try using a different spacer on top...one that will push down on the top circumference of the ball joint base instead of pushing down on the shaft.

[Joel_CA]

try using a different spacer on top...one that will push down on the top circumference of the ball joint base instead of pushing down on the shaft.

ABSOLUTELY! Press the ball joint body out- not the BJ shaft. As mentioned, be sure the cup on the other side of the BJ is large enough to accept the BJ otherwise you'll just be attempting to crush the BJ when applying any force. If you have another cup you can use on top- that would be the safer method. If not, a large impact socket will do. Use the new balljoint as a guide as far as what size cups to use on either end.

Cause for concern? Would that have been a very FORCEFUL impact or does it not take much to dent it there?

The dent is on the boot clamp itself and is nothing to worry about. The seepage does appear to be grease from the universal joint. Rebooting a CV axle is quite easy and would be recommended EXCEPT for the fact that Mitsu charges up the a$$ for a reboot kit. Toyota sells one kit that has both the inner and outer boot, 3 tubes of grease, new snap rings and clips for less than what Mitsu charges for 1 boot kit. INCREDIBLE The cheaper route would be to replace the axle though i feel an OEM unit is likely stronger.
FYI, you don't need to break the BJ free when replacing the axle assembly. Just remove 2 upper strut mount bolts and you'll be able to swing the knuckle around to remove it - just be sure you mark the position/rotation of the bolts so as not to affect your camber adjustment.

As what Jeff said- reinsert the BJ shaft into the knuckle base and tighten the nut. That is all that is needed to seat the tapered shaft. Adding the weight of the car won't really do much but compress the springs. Also- if you've loosened the lower control arm mounting bolts so that you can pivot the arm up and down freely to press out the BJ- be sure you retighten them with the suspension AT RIDE HEIGHT when you're all done. That means- finish the job and reassemble everything (minus the wheels), put your floor jack under the lower control arm- and jack it up so that the suspension is sitting at normal ride height, THEN tighten the lower control arm mounting bolts. The idea is to center the lower control arm bushings AT RIDE HEIGHT before clamping them down. If you tighten it and clamp the lower control arm bushing while the the suspension is fully extended, lowering the car back to ride height will put some "preloaded" twisting onto the bushing which will only cause the bushing to wear faster. Driving it in that condition will only make things worse as the suspension compresses over bumps further twisting the bushing further than it was intended to ever twist.

Good Luck!

J

[ProwlerGT]

Originally Posted by Joel_CA

ABSOLUTELY! Press the ball joint body out- not the BJ shaft. As mentioned, be sure the cup on the other side of the BJ is large enough to accept the BJ otherwise you'll just be attempting to crush the BJ when applying any force. If you have another cup you can use on top- that would be the safer method. If not, a large impact socket will do. Use the new balljoint as a guide as far as what size cups to use on either end.

The dent is on the boot clamp itself and is nothing to worry about. The seepage does appear to be grease from the universal joint. Rebooting a CV axle is quite easy and would be recommended EXCEPT for the fact that Mitsu charges up the a$$ for a reboot kit. Toyota sells one kit that has both the inner and outer boot, 3 tubes of grease, new snap rings and clips for less than what Mitsu charges for 1 boot kit. INCREDIBLE The cheaper route would be to replace the axle though i feel an OEM unit is likely stronger.
FYI, you don't need to break the BJ free when replacing the axle assembly. Just remove 2 upper strut mount bolts and you'll be able to swing the knuckle around to remove it - just be sure you mark the position/rotation of the bolts so as not to affect your camber adjustment.

As what Jeff said- reinsert the BJ shaft into the knuckle base and tighten the nut. That is all that is needed to seat the tapered shaft. Adding the weight of the car won't really do much but compress the springs. Also- if you've loosened the lower control arm mounting bolts so that you can pivot the arm up and down freely to press out the BJ- be sure you retighten them with the suspension AT RIDE HEIGHT when you're all done. ....

Good Luck!

J

Thanks a lot guys. I was afraid that I'd have to jack the car a foot higher which I'm not entirely comfortable with as the jack gets really hard to pump going higher than I am now. I always feel like the jack is going to EXPLODE and shoot shards at me. lol - Anyway, thanks for the tip on NOT trying to push it out by the shaft. I don't know though, I have two other cups and they are 1 bigger and 1 smaller and both the same height. Not sure that it would reach the top of the ball joint base though. We'll see. I'll also make sure the cup is wide enough on bottom to receive it. I think it is, but will make sure.

Thanks for the notes about the lower control arm mount bolts. It is very good stuff to know, but I purposely have NOT loosened them. I'd rather not have a long road back to getting all this reassembled so I only take off what I need after I've devised ways to get to only what I want. I guess thats pretty typical though aye.

As far as the CV boot goes - check this out:
http://motors.search.ebay.com/?from=...itle=3000gt+cv
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Set-o...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/CV-BO...QQcmdZViewItem

Think those eBayer's are any good? With that said, you really think its just leaking from the rubber boot? I mean couldn't I clean it up well and rtv the seal edge? To get the boot off I'd have to go get yet another tool (32mm socket to get the big ass bolt off the end).

This to me has turned out to be the best thread I know of for replacing our ball joints !

[ProwlerGT]

BTW - I ended up doing the removal just how I have it pictured pushing down on the shaft. It required near perfect alignment of the tools, but it came out and there wasn't even any POP. It just came loose.

INSTALLATION SUCCESS !!!!!! Below are some pictures of installation and post-installation stuff. A very important thing to note since I know many of you get the same ball joints and rent from AutoZone as well is that using the method I did in the pictures below for installation It left a few millimeters of space between the rim of the ball joint and the control arm mount hole underneath. To make sure I was't seeing a shadow or anything I stuck a Stanley needle picker in there. The BJ was flush on one side, but off on the other and this was because I'd reached my press limit with the tool. The top bolt of the ball joint ended up touching the base of the huge screw plunger thingy so this meant all I was doing was going no where. Still with about 5 - 7mm left to close in on I remembered ya'll suggesting using a big socket earlier, but in a different way than I was trying to do here. Shown in the photos below you'll see the socket is "big open end for bolts" on the downside. This allowed for the ball joint bolt to go upwards just a few hairs more in order for me to make the ball joint rim flush with the lower control arm underneath.

Comparison of Old vs New - Despite the dust cover being open and broken I really found both ball joints to have nearly the same break away resistance. I just used my hands though, so I dunno. It sure is tempting to just clean the damn thing up with some spray oil and put it back in with new covers and lube.


Ball joint installation - The winning combination of tools. Using the C-clamp going upwards listing the parts in between it we have the bottom platter with an end that fits well into the bottom of the c-clamp, ball joint base, control arm, medium sized dual open ended cup or pipe thingy, platter which fits the bj bolt pretty well, and then the savior 3/4" or 15mm socket which allows for the bolt to come up just a tad more to mount the bj flush with the arm bottom. Once you can't turn it anymore, give it one good half or full turn and you are done. Inspect below the arm to see that the ball joint lip is flush with the arm hole mount point. Suggest having an extra hydraulic jack to hold the hub/knuckle to the side (rear) of the arm and 2 qty small length 4x4's would be a HUGE help as well to rest the arm on eliminating you having to fight the play in the arm while doing this. Believe me, your back will thank you.


Another view.

[Joel_CA]

It required near perfect alignment of the tools

That is the scary part about pushing it down on the shaft. Just a slight offset to one side and the whole thing can pop out with a fury. I'm glad to see you've got it taken care of.

J

[JeffWVR4]

Good job! and great pics. So it's fixed, it's fixed right, you learned something, and you didn't have to pay a shop to do the work!

Just for reference, the local tire store wanted to charge me over $450 for each control arm plus $300 labor to install them. All this just to replace the balljoints like you just did for under $100.

[ProwlerGT]

Yeah I did it and it was just as much you guy's doing as it was mine. Couldn't have done it without the info that is either missing or vague in the manual and while there are tons of other ball joint pages on the web none of them were specific to our cars, the low clearance, and the infamous dealer listed "can't push these ball joints out of these" lower control arms. Paaaalease. It was great learning something new and seeing (instead of reading) how the suspension pivots using all those joints. I've never really known fully till now.

YEAH THE PRICE ! ISN'T THAT AMAZING ! That saved all kinds of $$$ JACK $$$ ! Now for me to just go do the other damn side which I'm hoping will go a lot faster now that I'm not afraid of breaking something. lol

[ProwlerGT]

PICKLE FORK (ball joint separator) - One other note I forgot to mention which will prevent you from smacking yourself and the car up is when you place the fork between the knuckle and the arm to wedge the ball joint from the knuckle be sure you have the fork flipped on the side which has the fork handle angled downward and not straight out level with the top surface of the arm (same principle here as with wrenches with an angled end). I had done it with the fork handle pointing straight out and it was hard to not hit the car (hammering from the front of the car towards the back) while hammering.