Ball Joint Tools

That's why I thought the air hammer would do the trick. I would need a massive brass transplant to get me to swing a regular hammer under the car the way it would take to upset a ball joint.

Mike

Just did 2 on a rusty Subaru today Time spent total 2 minutes; and that included putting down the prepare in my hand. I admit; I was a pickle fork user until 1.5 years ago. I kept watching another tech pull joints apart after one or two blows from a hammer. I got my biggest hammer and gave it a try. My pickle fork has been out of the box 1 time this year.

The JTC Auto Tools ball joint separator #1727 that I purchased on Ebay (specifically suggested by Ryan Biggs here) arrived this past Thursday (four business days after purchase). Cost: $25 + another $10 for shipping. Today I used it to successfully separate my Civic's front pass. side ball joint. This is in preparation for replacing the front control arm bushings on both sides. The tool worked great. Tips:

-- Diagrams for positioning the tool appear in several of the manuals at

. The factory service manuals and my Chilton's manual are a little vague about using any particular special tool on the lower control arm ball joints (as compared to other ball joints in the front suspension). Nonetheless, it works perfectly.

-- Per Curly's suggestion, I ground a shallow hole where the bolt pin pushes against the tool's arm.

-- I found I did not need to grind the "claws" so as to fit around the rubber boot better. They are actually pretty smooth already on this particular version of the tool. It seems to have been made carefully so as to preclude a torn boot. I did tap a little on the tool to push the claws firmly into place.

-- I only used one stage of the two stages on this particular tool. The ball joint separated with a loud pop about mid-way through the bolt advance. I used a 1.5 foot breaker bar and 15/16-inch socket. But not too much force was necessary to get the ball joint apart.

-- I flipped the castle nut and reinstalled it until its bottom was flush with the bottom of the ball joint bolt, per Eric's and Tegger's direction. Worked great. No damage of anything from all I can see.

-- Reinstalling was a cinch, as Michael indicated. I lifted the control arm (just a little inboard of the ball joint bolt) using a scissors jack against the weight of the car, and I heard the joint snapped back into place. The joining snap was more muted than the separating snap. I installed the castle nut about where I thought it should be, then fully removed the jack. I torqued it to spec. (only 32 ft-lbs for my Civic). Then I advanced it a bit more to line up the cotter pin holes and installed the pin. Then I put the wheel back on and removed the jack stand.

-- I think the cheaper version of this tool one sees online (the one that is "single stage") might very well work fine, except I'd double check that the claws didn't tear the boot rubber.

Thanks everyone for the input. I am quite pleased with the progress. The last hurdle in my front suspension renovation project is now actually pressing the new bushings in place. My new Mugen bushings arrive Wednesday. I start trying to install them, per the tips here, on Thursday.