hi guys,
so previous owner replaced the ball joint on the control arm but did not place a few tacks to hold it in place. this is what happened:



i was able to remove the control arm along with the tie rod end. but i can not remove the nut on the ball joint...it just spins and the bolt portion does not move. any idea on how to remove it?

 

impact gun and a vise

 

So, the bolt is spinning inside the ball joint so you can't get the nut off, is this correct?

You might be stuck using a torch or nut cracker. I don't know a way to stop the bolt turning unless you can rotate the ball joint to a point where the bolt is stopped.

Is there enough room inside the rubber cover that protects the ball joint to get something to attach to the bolt like those Vice Grips that are really thin and long?

 

No, the bolt itself is not spinning, only the nut. Seems like the threads are stripped but it's not coming lose.

 

If it's only the nut them put a screwdriver or other prying device under the nut and pry up while trying to take the nut off.

 

Uh oh, so either the nut or the bolt threads are stripped. Once you get it off, you might have to replace the ball joint anyway so it looks like a torch to cut off the nut is in your future unless someone has a better way.

 

Is that a self locking nut in place of the castle nut? nice...

Have you tried channel locks on the bolt and an impact on the nut? You really need the quick burst of torque from an impact to keep the ball joint from spinning with the nut. Could seem stuck depending on the nut used. If it's cross threaded, just cut it off and get a new ball joint. Can't be much more than $25, right?

 

ended up cutting the damn thing off since i ordered a new control arm. nut was stripped but would not come out. no idea how it stripped though. was going to replace just the ball joint but it was too easy to remove it from the arm so the hole had expanded a bit to much for my liking. thanks guys.

 

Glad you got it apart. Good reminder to everyone to put some tack welds on those things.... I had 2 of them come out years ago (before I had a welder, and the shop I had do it insisted I didn't need the welds...) what a pain in the butt...

 

yeah, definitely don't want to do this again. i'm going to be taking apart the passenger side in order to replace the tokico blues the previous owner installed so may as well get that side tacked when i remove it.

 

Yeah, I would like to add that, after reading quite a bit about this here on the forums, it seemed that you might could go either way with a tack weld or not. I replaced my ball joints (and everything else) and then took the car in for an alignment. When I pressed the ball joints in I felt that they were as tight in there as humanly possible and would be fine. This was also my first time with pressing in ball joints. When I went to pick the car up at the shop, the service tech told me that he had to put some tacks on the ball joints, because when he put it on the lift, he saw them move. =8-0

Tack them.

 

Glad to see you got it sorted out.

One way I've removed stuck castle nuts or castle nuts (on different cars with similar design) is to thread a bolt onto the end of the ball joint bolt. Most hardware stores will have bolts or rods with the threads on the outside as well as a hollowed out end with inner threads. Thread the bolt/rod onto the end of the ball joint as something to clamp on to.

The idea came from trying to get a stuck ball joint out of a subaru spindle. Most subarus use the opposite style design where the ball joint sits in the knuckle (rather than draw through). They also us a retainer bolt that likes to get stuck (pickle forks are no use here). So instead of cutting the entire ball joint and cup out, I found a axle nut socket that fit over the ball joint and a rod (as described above) to thread onto the ball joint to keep the ball from spinning in the cup. Washer and nut on top of the socket let me draw the joint out of the spindle. Massive pain compared to these!

 

^I'll second your comments on Subaru ball joints. Recently did mine and it was quite a pain in the ***....

 

should the tack be done from the top or the bottom? or does it not matter?

 

Either will hold it in place, but doing it on the bottom gets the heat away from the boot (you should try to remove it anyway first) and is also easier to cut if you need to change them again someday.

 

Take note:

There appear to be two different sizes of ball joints. One will press in very firmly, while the other will just fall right out. I wish I had the part number or manufacturer information, but I don't.

I am currently using the smaller sized joints, along with a couple of tach welds.



.

 

Thanks, that's what I was gearing towards.

 

I have found that if the ball joint is going to be scrapped anyway, just cut the boot away and use a pair of locking pliers (needle nose if space is tight) locked onto the shaft just above the ball. Works better than you may expect when coupled with an impact wrench. In some cases this can even work on ball joints if you aren't replacing them but you can't clamp as hard and its only possible if you have enough room to push the boot down a bit to prevent damage.