Are the Ball joints in an 81 gsl replaceable, or do you have to replace the entire lower control arm??

dennis

 

I had to replace my entire control arm; although, I'd bet that there is a shortcut available.

 

You can replace the ball joints. You need a hyd press. And some guys tack weld a couple of spots for saftey. Ive done it. You just gotta be careful not to bend or damage the stamped steel arm when pressing the ball joint out/in.

 

You guys are fast...
I think I will just replace the arms, but I will get a couple more miles out of the old ones first.

 

Ya, we replaced my freinds with whole new lower arms. I think they were about 80 each from mazda on my maotorsports discount. replace the inner control arm bushing with urethane while your in there too.

CJG

 

yea if I were you I'd replace the whole arm. I had my ball joints changed and I guess the hole in the arm had streched a bit or something cause they both ended up coming out on me. I ended up welding them back in, but plan to replace the arms soon.

 

I did mine with the Ball Joints that come with the PST kit. They come with a snap ring so they can not come out. The original BJ's were a bit*h to get out though. I'd still just buy the pst kit and do it with the BJ's that come with them. If you know a military person have them take you to the hobby shop and take care of busness.

 

I did them on my '79 autocrosser, and I used a real honest ball joint removal tool. Worked like a champ, and saved me the cost of control arms.

The balljoint remover looks like a really big C clamp, a lot of guys that work on 4x4's will have one. Doing this in a press makes it easy to get the joint misaligned when pressing it out, and that's what screws up the control arm.

 

rx7carl is correct, if you replace just the bj's, have them tack welded in place or they will come out. rx7doctor

 

I replcaced mine recently. Pass was functional, drivers was shot. Neither had any boots to speak of. Took the control arms to a shop and let them do the pressing. Cost me about $110 for the whole thing, including the $40 shop charge. No tack welds but they haven't come loose either.

When I do a 13b swap (and put in a GSL-SE subframe, around Thanksgiving or Christmas) I'll check the ball joints, but so far they're giving me no problems.

 

Mine havent come loose either and werent tack welded. I check them after every session. Dont want one comming loose on the track. I think it depends on the individual arm mfg tolerances. If it goes in easy then its probably a good candidate for some tack welds if theres no snap ring on it.

 

I don't think that mine are coming loose either. There was no play, nor any gap or deformed metal I could see. It looked pretty sturdy.