I pulled a pair of front control arms from a parts Firebird (1989). I pressed the old ball joints out, and removed the old bushings. I planned to clean them up, then replace bushings and ball joints. Then swap them onto my driver car.
I dont think the bushings have ever been replaced. But the ball joint, I'm thinking...maybe they were previously replaced?
The picture below shows me inserting the new ball joints (Moog K6145T) into the control arms. I did **NOT** need a press to put them in. The ball joints slip right in. Also notice the ends of the control arms have been spray painted yellow. Not sure what that symbolizes.

Are the control arms trash, or can I get slightly larger ball joints, and press them in? They are in pretty good shape, and I'd like to use them.

 

Kinda feels like maybe they HAVE been replaced, and that the ones they put in were the "large" ones, designed to fit where the holes had got damaged.

Might want to exchange them for that type in any case. Or, just go to the buzzard nest and pry another set out from under the buzzards. They're SUPER CHEEEEEEEP; must fit S trucks or G bodies or something, that there's like A BILLION of out there. Quite plentiful even when there's not a single thirdgen in sight.

 

Do you have a pair of calipers to measure both the holes and the ball joints?

I know that some aftermarket A-arm makers claim that there are ball joints out there that are undersize (I haven't seen it but I suppose it can happen) but most of the time the ball joints with the ribbed seat part are "problem solver" parts that are slightly oversized to deal with control arms that are worn oversize. If you have calipers measure both carefully and post their sizes, I think I have specs somewhere that I can look up, heck, I have a few control arms and ball joints sitting around...

 

Thank you both for your responses. I do appreciate your thoughts.

I dug the old ball joind out of the scrap barrel, and measured it:


Here's the new Moog ball joint, which appears to be the same size:


And here's the control arm:


When things dry out a bit, if they ever do, I'll hit the boneyard and grab another pair of control arms. I'm not surprised they have been swapped out. My parts car is swiss-cheese rusted all over, but appears to have had a long-term owner who really took care of it, mechanically. Came with a pile of documentation, and plenty of notes written in various places under the hood.

 

The buzzard probably already has those pulled and sitting on the shelf. Every time I've ever wanted some, they did. Like I said, they fit something else (something with front shocks... notice that they have the hole for those in them) that there's ALOT LOT LOT of in the world. Might even be able to locate some on www.car-part.com.

 

I had this issue on my GTA a while back. No idea of the ball joints were replaced prior to me doing them, but the new ones were loose. I just ran a couple of weld beads to hold the ball joint in.

 

had a similar issue.
i just used a Punch and hammered the A-arm hole inwards
even just denting in in 4 places is enough.
since it's a LOWER ball-joint it wont fall out because the spring is always pushing down on the suspension.

if you are still worried, have a shop put a tiny tack weld on 2 spots
or better yet, get QA1 Ultimate ball-joints and weld in the housing.

 

In your first picture, you show the new balljoint installed only up until the knurling starts. The knurl gets pressed all the way into the control arm. Not sure if the pic was before or after you checked the fitment.
With .35mm (.013”) interference fit, that should be plenty for a press fit.

 

Yeah, 53.06 mm in a 52.71 mm hole. That says press-fit to me.
Notice that the MOOG part says "problem solver", whatever that might mean.