Ward

iTrader: (1)

Ok this is non, thirdgen, but what the heck. My friend bought a pair of 2" drop spindles for his 95 Sonoma, and we put them on today. The drivers side went without any problems, but the passenger side was another story. The lower ball joint just would not separate from the spindle. Heres what all we tried. First, we tried separating them with a pickle fork for about 20 minutes. Whiel doing this we had teh truck on a jackstand with a jack under the lower control arm, that way we would not have to remove the spring. We then bolted the spindle back to the upper and removed the jack from the lower control arm, thus putting about 650 lbs of pressure on the stud. That didnt move it. The we put a bottle jack inbetween the control arms, along with the spring putting pressure on it. This easily put over 1000 lbs of pressure on the stud. Still no go. then we rented a 2-arm puller from autozone and put the clamps on the control arm, and the screw on the end of the stud, to try and push down on teh stud ,through the spindle. Instead, the entire ball joint pops out of teh lower control arm.

Finally, I said f*ck it, and got a hack saw. About an hour later, I sawed all the way through the ball joint stud. When the pieces finally came off, i tossed the spindle (with ball joint half still attached) as far as i could (about 10 fet because my arm was so tired from sawing). The we had to press in the new ball joint. We put the bottle jack under the bottom of teh ball joint, and set teh ball joint in the hole, and started jacking. This got it a little way, we had to hammer on teh control arm and ball joint for about 30 more minutes before the whole thing was over with. I am never working on that truck again... I will see if I can post pics.

Vader

Ward,

Don't you love it? The three "P"s are always helpful with external parts exposed to the weather - Penetrating oil, Patience, and Perseverance. Proper tools also help. A separator (pickle fork) should have been adequate if there was no rust or galling.

As for the lower ball joints, they are supposed to press into the control arm, and generally with a lot more force than 600 pounds. Several tons usually does it. Any lower ball joint that just falls into the arm indicates a worm control arm.

You are reassembling everything with anti-seize compound, right?

I've been thinking about new spindles for my Sonoma - wanna lend a hand?