Kevman

I changed the lower drivers balljoint on my 89 Firebird. It took roughly 6 hours... Between finding tools, swearing, and hitting my hand off of sharp objects it had to be 6 hours.. Has anyone had this much trouble doing it? Would I have been better off pulling the lower control arm off and putting it in the bearing press? I got it in, but man, it was impossible.. I heated the lower control arm up, and put the ball joint in the freezer, so it went in easier than it would have if I left them at room temp. But still, it was nearly impossible..

rover420

Man i hear u on these cars for some reason the are a P.I.T.A. I tried without the press for like 3 hours lol and said funk that. I went to princess auto and bought a press for a hundred bucks and it still was a bitch so i cheated a little bit i got it in all the way on one side the i shimmed the press so it was on a angle and pushed up the other side and it went in fairly easy after i figure out that one cause i to froze and heated well it was so cold here i just left them out side. Good luck tho dude and u might as well change those bearings since the case is plastic and they're fairly cheap but they'll save u on some gas if there is no more resistance when your driving.


Hey man i just noticed that your from windsor i'm from amherstburg what a quincidence eh. both v6 5 speed and everything.

krisb410

iTrader: (9)

It took me a long time too. But I hear the trick is to put them in the freezer the night before. If I ever do them again, I will try that.

Kevman

Hey man, I'm really close to Amherstburg, I live right outside of Mcgregor, on Walker road. Gimme a ring if ya wanna meet up one day, i'll PM you my ### ####.

rover420

ya man for sure i just gotta get my camaro on the road i'm still pokin at it every once in awhile i've been busy and she's sitting in anderdon at my brothers place but when i do ya i'll give ya a ring or a pm.

Randy82WS7

no way they are simple, i just put the lower arm on a floor jack with a 4x4 under the arm behind the joint and smack the joint out of the arm with a BFH

then i put the new joint under the arm at the hole and put all the weight above the 4x4 and smack the arm around the joint until its seated all the way

done

about 5 minutes to do it


good luck

rover420

that's exactly how i tried it the first time it might just be because i got the TRW over sized balljoints instead of the regular size cause i've done them b4 with the jack 4x4 and BFH method and it wasn't even a hard task at all just like slipped right in.

Kat

iTrader: (4)

When I used to work at spohn's, we used a 40 ton press to put the new joints in to the a-arms. It took roughly 6 tons of pressure to press them in.

On stock a-arms iirc, it was something like 800 pounds to press the moog joints in there.

Fast92RS

iTrader: (2)

I had no problem doing mine before I change to tubular a arm. With the right tools anything is easy. I used a ball joint press and a 1/2 impact gun. I did mine with them off the car, but you can do it on the car.

86camaro383

iTrader: (3)

When I did mine, I just compressed the spring, and removed the control arm. I used a press to take the old ones out, and new one in. Took me about 45 minutes to do that, plus sandblast the control arms and paint them.