Ok, I've been feeling like crap already today, but it was ok outside so I decided to replace my badly worn lower ball joint and everything went pretty smooth until it came to removing the pinch bolt and getting the spindle out of the hub carrier.

I couldn't get teh pinch bolt out (tried torching,re-shaping head, screw extractors, and so on), but I just cut the damn thing down the middle and figured I'd push/drill the rest out and be on my way later on.

I cannot continue without removing the old ball joint assembly though... I cannot get it to release from the hub carrier no matter what I try. I searched and someone mentioned just burning the crap out of it and scraping the gunk away, but I don't think that's gonna work.

Any other wise ideas?

 

Torching does nothing... I think I'm going to end up taking it to the shop up the street and having them knock that POS out of there, then drill the pinch bolt out so I can put a new one with a nut in there (current one threads into the other end of the pinch assembly).

Hopefully it won't cost too much, especially since I already have a new balljoint for them to snap in and the rest of the hardware should pop right off after I have lossened it.