I tried to pull out my ball joint last night to replace because I had a spare 11 minutes to work on the car... I rented the ball joint removal tool from autozone. It basically removed the ball joint center from the ball joint housing, leaving the ball joint housing stuck in the arm. Any ideas how to get the housing out???

 

12 ton press and an assorment of sockets work for me. If you don't have a press hiding in the closet, take it to a machine shop.

 

the joint is pressed into the lower control arm. haven't done it on a 7, but i'm sure it'll work the same. on my rx3, i removed the control arm and placed it on top of a vice to where the vice supported the arm and at the same time the joint would slide between the vice jaws. applied heat to the outer portion on the arm at the joint, and with a BFH, drove the joint down out of the arm.

 

Well...


I can't get the control arm off, either.

 

What's stopping you?

 

I thought you were doing control arm bushings a while back. Don't you just love rust.

I can't recommend heat and a BFH. Even using a press and the correct sized sockets, I noticed some deflection and bending in the control arms. The 'brute' method would make it even worse.

 

that's possible considering how the arms on the FB's r made compaired to the rx3.

 

I can't get the bolt out.

I did the whole rear, because I thought that would be more difficult than the front.

Boy, was I wrong.

So what do you think would work?

 

You will need to sacrifice the through bolt on the control arm. Use a cut off wheel on a die grinder or careful use of a sawzall. It will need to be cut on both sides, (inside of arm), most likely, then you will need to save the bushing sleeve if new ones didn't come with the new bushes, they usually don't.

 

Press is really your only hope. BTW, I have an extra set of control arms if you need them.

 

I just replaced my entire lower control arm on the passenger side... The through bolt came out pretty good, after alot of rust penatrent and a heavy duty impact. I did have to cut off the old sway bar end links, but i replaced them with polyurethane ones. I wanted to only do the ball joint, but all the parts stores round here sold it as a whole unit... So the 12 ton press i have at my shop didnt come in handy LOL... I would have to say just hit the bolt with some WD40 or rust stuff, and then hit it good and hard with an impact... If that dont werk.... Cut the SOB out. But for the ball joint, definately a machine shop. Probly wont be more than $25

 

When I did the front controls arms I just cut the bolts and then driled them out a bit, and slid the control arm out, it worked pritty well for me, but it was a long tedious proces drilling out the bolts. Tool about 4 hours total work, and another hour or so to wrk the arm out.

I will probably be doing the ball joints on my car soon, or at least inventing boots for them, because the old ones are messed up.

Wow am I glad I fell upon this one lol. now I know how big a pile of **** I am going to drown in.

 

Odd. My 7 is pretty rusty but I've never had the kind of bolt seizing problems that you're having. The worst I had to deal with was grinding off the front swaybar links because they'd rusted to the sleeve. We must not use alot of salt on our roads or something.

 

something i've done before is thread the nut on the end of the bolt so not to damage the threads and drive it out. and it has nothing to do with bruteness, sometimes things just need alittle persuasion.

 

That does work well some days. I have also used an air chishel, with a point end. Works particularly well on the rear suspension.

 

I've got an air chisel, I'll try that.

 

1/2 socket set and a long pipe. So far I have not found a bolt on the FB that wont move with this combo.

 

The problem with the lower control arm bushing is the steel sleeve around the bolt. The hole in the arm is large enough for the bolt, but not the sleeve, The sleeve rusts to the bolt, bolt cannot come out, bolt and sleeve spin inside of the bushing. The rust bond must be broken, but heat is ineffective because the rubber bushing surrounds the sleeve. The only options are penetrant, heating both ends of the bolt and/or a vibratory force to break the bond, or sacrifice the bolt and cut it out.

 

If the ball joint press only removed part of the ball joint, all I can think of is that you used the incorrect fitting on the press. I just did this a few weeks ago, and the adapter I used covered the entire base of the ball joint. You might want to take another look at the press and adapters...