Hi guys! Still working on my TA 1982, I was wondering how to remove the Lower ball joints in order to make a powder coating on the lower arms. Are they screwed or crimped? Easy to remove? Thanks for your help

 

Pressed

​​​​​​​Easy enough, in the way that brain surgery is easy enough for a brain surgeon. More challenging for the rest of us. It can be done though.

 

The ball joints are a press fit. Can be removed / installed fairly easily with the right tool, a Ball Joint Press. AutoZone and Advanced Auto typically have as a loaner tools if don't want to buy one.

 

If you're ambitious enough, you can simply beat them the F, right out of the arm with a hammer.

 

Yeah, but he's probably going to want to press them back in so the fresh new powder coating isn't beat the F up.

If you're pulling them completely off the car, I'd recommend an investment in a HF, or some other cheap, hydraulic shop press. The ball joints can be tricky, especially going back in. You have to get them started straight back in, and my experience, at least, they seem to always want to go in at an angle, in spite of the ball joint press you're using. You'll also want to grind the powder coating off of the hole the BJ presses into. It's a tight fit, and will be impossible with even a coat of paint there.

 

ok. I understood that it should be better for me to put new ones after removed them. The price is not so high and i can afford it. I will put a small protection on the hole to avoid any coating in this area... thanks for your reply

 

by removing the front spring I am a bit surprised that there is no rubber connecting part between the spring and the cradle. Is that fair for you?

 

Yea thats normal. The top of the rear spring will have an isolator but nothing for the fronts. They just index right into the stamped pathway in the a-arm.

 

I don't recall any of these cars coming with one on the front.

You can add one easily enough, if you want one. Just slit a piece of heater hose about a foot long and wrap it around the spring end.

 

Other gm vehicles with that spring o.d. in lower spring rates used isolators up front. Add if you like.