My experience with removing ball joints (MKII)

[Tyler H]

Originally Posted by V6'er

And *I* always use a pickle fork, works like a charm.


And with that said, TO EACH HIS OWN!

I agree with to each his own, but I wouldn't use a pickle fork on anything more advanced than a Jeep.

My balljoints were abnormal. I ended up taking them to a mechanic, and I never take anything in...that's just not me. And they had a damned hard time with them. I even destroyed the SST trying to get the front ones out.

I will say that the only parts that were worn in the entire 135k suspension were the balljoints, struts and the strut tops. Everything else was like new.

Since then, I have put 10k miles on new all-oem total rebuild of the suspension and the passenger front strut or strut top is blown. I don't know if the replacement parts are of lower quality than the original, or maybe they've just been sitting around on the shelf for 10 years?

I'm getting coilovers this time.

[Ozymandias]

Yeah. I couldn't get mine out either...we tried everything...pickle forks, pitman pullers, everything. Finally gave up and decided they didn't seem bad anyway.

[Brad Bedell]

Originally Posted by V6'er

And *I* always use a pickle fork, works like a charm.


And with that said, TO EACH HIS OWN!

Unless for some reason you really need to reuse that ball joint. Then you generally tear the boot or squeeze grease out everywhere.

[Tyler H]

My best 'normal' method is to put the car on a lift and get a 4' bar and pry the control arm down, with about 2' of the bar against the unibody. Then I smack the stud with a 3lb shorty sledge and that usually does it in 2-3 whacks.

[cbulen]

I tried the pickle fork. No way, not even with the suspension arm on the car, or in a vise. The guy at my local wrecking yard also tried the pickle fork on a wrecked mr2 (92 or 93) and beat it with a 7 ot 10 lb sledge. No way.

I bought a $8 pitman arm puller (small one) at harbor freight. It popped all 4 of my joints, and the one on the wrecked car, and my front outer tie rod joints as well, in no time. If you put remove the suspension arm completely, and put it in a vise, BE WARNED that the joint will pop and shoot like a bullet. I put a piece of wood against the wall to keep the joint from denting my garage wall.

Really, the easiest/cheapest thing to do is get the Harbor frieght pitman arm puller. Pictures of pitman arm pullers were posted in this thread prior to my post. Be sure not to get the wide/large one (I happened to have one of those from my truck), and its too big.

You can also rent a ball joint removal kit from Shucks/Kragen, which will have the small pitman arm puller in it.

[cbulen]

My bad, I must have confused this thread with that OTHER MR2 forum.

Here is an example pic of a pitman arm pullerhttp://www.reesetiresupply.com/index...OD&ProdID=5799

Remember you can get it for only $8 at Harbor Freight. I could not find it on thier website, but I bought one about 2 weeks ago.

On HF's website is this puller kit:http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=92882


I also bought thier spring compressor tool (compatible with strut style suspension), for a whopping $10. I will give it a try this weekend when I replace my stock springs and struts. Don't konw if the spring compressor tool is any good or not (HF tools are not exactly top quality, and I don't buy wrenches from them), however, the puller was good enough to pop all of my really stubborn ball joints.

[V6'er]

Originally Posted by Brad Bedell

Unless for some reason you really need to reuse that ball joint. Then you generally tear the boot or squeeze grease out everywhere.

Even worse, you collapse the socket and ruin it anyway. Besides, give me ONE good reason that you need to remove the balljoint from the LCA, short of powder coating the arm.

Oh, and BTW guys, for those of you that tried a pickle fork and it didn't work, you DO know that there are at least TWO sizes of forks, right?

[bufferdan]

Hammer wacking worked for me

[MortICi]

You guys actually replace the internal ball joint? Wow, i just get the whole thing it's like 30$ for 2 lol. All you need 2 do is unbolt it (2 side screws) and the center ball join screw get it off the control arm and replace with new one took me like 15 mins lol. Then again the fron ball joints i got were milled wrong and didn't fit into the seat, the rear ones were fine.

Greg.

[Tyler H]

Originally Posted by MortICi

You guys actually replace the internal ball joint? Wow, i just get the whole thing it's like 30$ for 2 lol. All you need 2 do is unbolt it (2 side screws) and the center ball join screw get it off the control arm and replace with new one took me like 15 mins lol. Then again the fron ball joints i got were milled wrong and didn't fit into the seat, the rear ones were fine.

Greg.

No, we replace the assembly as you said. The stud that goes into the LCA is just a ***** to get out occassionally.

[jon_mr2]

Originally Posted by Tyler H

No, we replace the assembly as you said. The stud that goes into the LCA is just a ***** to get out occassionally.

yep, what he said. its a ***** to get out. i found that its easiest to take off the lower control arm and just whack the thread side against the ground or with a hammer... came out in 2 hits for me. i tried for at least an hour before i decided to remove the arm... using pullers, ball joint forks and anything else i could think of... lol

[Luni]

Hammer and a fork has worked on every single car Ive ever tried it on. Simple physics. Im with V6'er.

Ive never had it fail.

Never done it on my MK2, but when I do my ball joints Ill be using a fork and if it doesnt work Ill try the puller, and post my results.

[Gairloch]

I just did all four of mine in about an hour with the puller a couple weekends ago.

After trying the fork/whacking on another car and having a hard time with it I just decided that it wasn't worth messing around with.

[arber0214]

hey i give you credit for doing all that job for just the boll joint, first time i did on the mr2 it drove me nuts (i have done a lot of boll joints) and yes the hammer trick didnt work for me, but i bought the boll joint remover tool for 20$ and it worked fine didnt care about the boot, the new has it on. Next time try to take it out with out removing the strut or the hole lower controll arm it will work , and it will save a lot of time.

[Raptor13x]

Mine were a whore too. I finally took it up to an auto parts store and they managed to get it off with some hammer-assisted coaxing.

[redna]

Great... I'm about to go out in the garage and attempt this.

[TKMR2]

when did you get another mr2 ?

[redna]

About 3 days after I let you take that MT-90.. haha... bad timing on my part because I need some now!

[TKMR2]

haha sucka! thanks again for hooking me up.

[Poohhbear9044]

I have just recently replaced all four ball joints...the splitter pictured below is what I used. I had no issues getting any of them out other than it required a lot of force, which is easily provided by the leverage of the splitter.



Bob