Ball joint removal( this is what I did)

Thought this might be helpful to some. Actually might save you some time. I am redoing my front beam from a 75' donor and wanted the old joints out and new one's pressed in. No big deal I thought. Bentley's treated it as second nature. So, I carried the old and new down to the recomended guy in town. On first sight, he was unsure he could do it. He gave it a go anyway. No luck - he managed to push the ball straight out of the joint and nothing else. Time is money, as they say, so he suggested I give it a go myself and offered pointers on what to do. First attempt involve red hot heating and a 5lb hammer - no luck it moved only slightly and once it was flush with the arm I had nothing else to bang on. What worked was to hacksaw from the inside out. Cut just one thin line through the ball housing and it knocks out easily. To do the next one I grinded off the backside of the joint until I could beat out the ball part and then used the hacksaw as above. That is the way the next two will be done also. It took only about 10-15 minutes to do it that way. Of course now the new joints can be pressed in by the same guy without a problem.