Lower Ball Joint Press

[Brian Snider]

So I attempted to do the lower ball joints on my 01 sport trac and lost. I got the front end apart and had the ball joint press installed and was working on it but here's where it fell apart.



The press I got from O'Reilly's had 3 rings that are designed to be the part that went around the ball joint stud and pressed against the A-arm. The meduim sized one I believe caught the ledge that is the outside of the ball joint but set nice and square with everything. The large ring seemed to not fit the space between the ball-joint and A-arm.



Can anyone who's replaced the ball joints help me not spend $400 on a job I can do? Is there a "lip" that this middle sized ring is supposed to catch? or does the largest ring only half fit nicely?



Many thanks



Brian

 

[Craig Long]

I used a rent a press from Autozone to get out my old ball joint and did the jack trick to help press in the new one. Use one of the spacers with the new balljoint and use a jack to jack it into the hole, i then beat the A-arm with a miny sledge and it went in after 20 or so wacks. Still a pain to do.

 

[swshawaii]

Ditto BFH. Snap ring removed? Lot's of penetrant and hammer for removal.

Put the ball joints in the freezer and use the ball joint press to reinstall. GL

 

[Mark K 2]

What they said. I'll tell you what... Once you do ball joints by yourself correctly for the first time, you feel you can do anything. :banana:

 

[Jerry Gerner 2]

I bought the ball joint press tool kit from Harbor Freight and it worked perfect with the electric impact gun I also got from Harbor Freight. Also used a 3lb. hammer to tap them out the rest of the way.

 

[Jeffksf B]

Check out other kits online to see if yours had all the parts, sometimes those rental units are missing parts.

 

[scott degroot]

Ball joint presses can be confusing the first time or 2 you use them. It sounds like they gave you a bare minimum generic which does not always work for every application, I probably have 20 adaptors for the ball joint press I have. FWIW I wouldn't use any kind of impact with a ball joint press, it can mess up the threads of the forcing screw if your not careful.



Sorry I can't be of any help but this is one of thise things that unless you can see which adaptors you are using and what you are trying to do it's almost impossible to describe. Have you tried YouTube, I think they have a ton of ball joint press videos. A tip that I can give you though is to have a hammer handy when you are doing this, as you tighten the forcing screw to install the ball joint give the control arm where the ball joint goes into it a good whack with the hammer every once in a while, it will help the ball joint go in easier.

 

[Dreman]

I used a ball joint press to get the lowers out of mine, and they wouldn't move. I twisted the press so much the c-clamp now has a permanent bend to it, and it still wouldn't come out! A quick tap with a 3lb sledge popped it right out. The press still works with the bend in it, oddly enough!