Can someone give me a quick rundown of the tools I would need for ball joint replacement and also any tips to do the job?

Thanks,

 

It's an amazing pain in the ***. There's 2 ways you can do it.

The first way is to do it on the car. This requires a ball joint removal tool that will slip a minimum of 200 times before it actually works right. Expect it to slip 300 times on the re-installation before you get pissed and just pound it in with a hammer.

The second way is to remove the lower control arm and use a press to remove/reinstall the ball joint. This way seems like the best way until you try to reinstall the coil spring. Even with a spring compressor tool I wasn't able to get the spring compressed enough, so I wound up doing a balancing act with the spring and LCA in place while I jacked the LCA until I could slide the bolts back in. Not fun.

Next time I'm going back to the ball joint removal tool method or buying a better spring compressor.

 

Damn, that sounds like a b i t c h to do..
I won't be touching the springs.
I read on the net somewhere that it's possible to leave the strut/spindle/rotor in tact and work on the arm/balljoint.

Thanks,

 

I thought it was a piece of cake.........It took longer to go to Autozone and get the balljoint press than it did to remove the old and install the new...At the time I was installing new springs,so the lca was hanging......

 

I picked up the ball joint tool from Harbor Freight that runs about $50. It works quite well. Don't get the $30 one, though - it's junk.

Did anybody mention you need a floor jack under the LCA, and a ball joint separation fork? BFH is good, too (at least a 3 pounder).

 

It's good to see that others had better luck than me, although honestly I'd feel better if I wasn't the only person that had such amazing difficulty and problems with some of these projects.

 

3LBS??? Heh, I guess I just hit harder, I use a 1.5 lb ballpeen hammer, 2 good hits and it flys apart.

 

i use the 10 lb hammer here

www.fl-thirdgen.org/balljointreplacement.html

 

havent done them on an f-body yet, but it doesnt sound that bad.......
did them on a 98 Blazer, their riveted onto the LCA in their own seperate "holder" just knock off the rivets with an air chisel and bolt in the new one

 

i've done a lot of ball joints and never thought it was that big a job. i always torch the sway bar bushing bolt ,torch shocks if it has them and replace since it's a safe bet they need it too and the extra cost is small. if you do tie rod ends it's easier to replace the sleeves than to screw the ends out and the new in the old sleeves, again the cost to aggrivation factor makes it reasonable to replace all the parts. same way if you need control arm bushing, might was well replace ball joints. part of the secret is using tools that work for the job at hand and not trying to improvise or skimp.