BAll Joint beat me....

[Lazzman]

Well I had to give up on my right lower ball joint replacement. I have a 4wd explorer sport and for some reason I could not get the Lower control arm to seperate from the knuckle. It seemed as if the cv axle was getting in the way. No matter how High I jacked the lower control arm the ball joint would not seperate, eventually at one point raising the knuckle with it. I pulled the rotor assembley but it would not come through, I would say about 1/8" of the ball joint shaft was still in the control arm hole- very frustrating.

Does anyone who has replaced lower ball joints on a 4x4 have any tips in case I want to try this again? I was almost there and it was a straight forward job but not being able to get to the old ball joint and compress it really fouled things up. After about 5 hours of trying to get to it I ran out of day light. I used the link below but I guess it was for the two wheel Drive model. My CD manual also only has the two wheel drive install.

http://www.haroh.com/explorer/ball_joint.html

Any help would be appreciated as to where I went wrong.

 

[dreamr]

Sorry that it is being such a pain.

Here was what I did, It took right around an hour.
-We start on jackstands with no tire and nothing under the control arm yet.
-Remove all braking components
-Remove sway bar end links
-Remove axle nut
-Remove Hub/Bearing assembly
-Disconnect TRE
-Push stub axle back through the hole in the spindle and out of your way
-Remove cotter pin and castle nut from Lower BJ
-A few quick hit's with a 1 pound deadblow released the BJ from the spindle (strike the control arm)
-Grab the trusty BJ Press and propane torch.
-I put as muh pressure on the BJ as I could get with the press and an Impact wrench
-I then aimed the torch at the area and leaned back to have a smoke
-By the time my cig was done the BJ had begun to move on it's own and was relatively easy to press in.
-Let the area cool back down some before replacing with new part
-To press the New BJ In I found that it was easier to take my floor jack and fit the install cup from the BJ Press on it. The lift up on the bottom of the BJ I had started by hand. It won't press in all the way like this , but once you start to lift the whole vehicle rather than the control arm, get that trusty 1 pound deadblow back out and start tapping the control arm in a circular motion around the BJ. The vehicle weight combined with the tapping pressed them in a lot easier than the press.

P.S. Don't forget that the BJ boot has a notch in it which faces in.

 

[DeRocha]

Put new ball-joint(s) in the freezer several hours before starting the job.. The cold will contract them a few thousandths of an inch which will make them go in with far less effort.

 

[Howard]

Yep when I did mine on a 4x4 you do have to disconnect the front drive shafts or you can't get the hub to clear the ball joint. Crack the hub nuts before you lift the wheel they are very tight. After that its easy. I used the ball joint press and they went in with no trouble.

 

[Lazzman]

Thanks, it is now evident that the Hub assembly does have to be removed on a 4x4 to remove the ball joint or else the control arm won't clear the knuckle. Not that bad just take off the hub nut and push the cv axle back through and out of the way.

I wish I knew this on Friday.... great tip about the freezer

 

[mynameisaric]

while you have it open you should repack some new grease in there.

 

[gijoecam]

while you have it open you should repack some new grease in there.

Spoken by someone who's obviously never pulled the hub off a 2nd gen 4x4.

If you can show me where to put the grease in, I'll happily grease 'em.

-Joe

 

[97BlackX5.0]

you can take out the abs sensor out of the bearing unit... held in by a allen screw and use your grease gun to pump grease in there... i have done this and still have the originals after 140k miles.... TAKE CARE that you twist the sensor around in circles they are a ***** to get out and if you crack one youll have to buy a new one.... I did mine and cracked one the first time.... then pop the sensor back in tighten the screw and put it back on....

 

[mynameisaric]

when i pulled the cv shaft out of the steering knuckle, there certainly quiet a bit of goupy black crap that reminded me of dirty grease. i just wiped it all out and packed new bearing grease in there and put the assembly back together.

theres no open bearings per say to put grease in, but i figure if there was grease in there to begin with, may as well replace it with some better/cleaaner grease. theres little cups in the steering knuckle that i pack grease into. maybe i'm just an idiot.

 

[Turdle]

when I did my 98 AWD and my friends 96 EB we removed the lower control arms. It seemed intimidating at first, but we marked and measured ride height bolts and torsion bars, bottle jacked the ride height levers,remove ride height adj. bolt, removed the square keeper, the lower the bottle jack slowly.lay tosion bar on ground. After removing the sway bar endlinks, shock bolts, and 2 control arm bolts, the whole arm can be pivoted and removed without messing with the axles. It was fairly easy to replace the balljoints with the control arm on a workbench, at our mercy, if you understand. Has anyone tried this method?
of course, get an alignment when completed

 

[Bills98Explorer]

I did a set without removin the axles,it was a PIA but I got it.
Just did the uppers on mine.Took 15 minutes for the right side and about an hour for the drivers side.I had trouble getting the bolts away from the control arm brackets.

 

[Turdle]

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this is on subject. check this link