putting ball joints in

[elfexplorer94]

I am installing upper and lower D/S ball joints on my 94 explorer 4x4 xlt and was wondering if anybody might have an opinion on wehter i should just take the control arm off and take it and have them pressed or try to do it myself with a ball joint press kit. I think it would be eaiser and (safer for the control arm) if i take it to be pressed.
:roll:

 

[MrShorty]

Not entirely certain what you are referring to. You '94 TTB suspension doesn't have a "control arm" like you see on the later SLA IFS used on '95+. The ball joints are pressed into the steering knuckle. SOP when replacing ball joints is to get the steering knuckle off, then press the ball joints out of the steering knuckle.

When I did mine, I followed the instructions given in Chiltons, and the instructions seemed adequate. I know somewhere here is a write-up on ball joints.

 

[Maniak]

On the 1st gen X you take off the steering knuckle and there is no "control arm".. Once its off using a ball joint press makes short work of it.. The balljoint press we used on our '92 recently (few months) was from harbor freight tools.. it looks like a big c-clamp. We put the c-clamp looking thing in the vice to help hold it.. and it popped out and in the old ball joints no problems.. I did put the new ball joints in the freezer in the morning and took them out right before we installed them.

From what I've read, taking off the spindle is the hardest part. In our case it came right off.. If your in the rust belt it won't come right off.

There is a good thread on here about changing the spindle bearings and some other parts.. It has good instructions...

~Mark

EDIT: MRShorty beat me to it..

 

[Maniak]

I found the thread..

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218254

I found it by going to the useful thread forum and searching just that forum for spindle since I know the writeup talked about spindle bearing replacement too.

~Mark

 

[fixxxer]

I did upper and lower ball-joints as well as the spindle bearings very recently.
The hardest part was finding that 12pt 6mm socket for the abs sensor bolt. AdvanceAuto now carries it. I think it was $3.49? and the Harbour-Freight ball-joint press was $16.99 on sale. Plan on spending 2 hours doing the first one (to figure it all out) and 1 hour for the other side.