Removing Front Control Arms

[tibbs.james 1]

The other day while fitting a 325 Swaybar & some urethane i noticed the rubber boots and covers on all my front ball joints were split.

So i have 4 replacment ball joints i can press in once i get the old ones pressed out.

only i can't seem to get the inner ball joints out of the crossmember.

ive tried giving the drivers side a bash but its pretty well stuck & that still dosn't help me with the passenger side one as thats impossible to get to withot removing a whole bunch of stuff.

The outer ball joints needed a really good bash too but they are easy to get at.

Help really appreciated as i need to get these off before friday night.

[hybrid 1043]

I use a spray you can get from repco called Penetrate pretty sure its a CRC product... seriously .. spray it on, leave it 5 minutes and out she comes with a bit of a hammer on the support areas ... If you dont already know .. never hit the actual ball joint, it just destroys it.

[tibbs.james 1]

support area as in from underneath the car ?

If so i will give it a shot.

Ball joints ( both on each side ) are being replaced with brand new out of the box units.

So i only need to get everything off so they can be pressed out.

I would never hit a ball joint with a hammer if i planned to use it ever again.

[drifty325i 0]

"325 Swaybar & some urethane" Nice nice

[Mike 1]

support area as in from underneath the car ?

yip, whack the subframe where the ball joint runs through.

make sure when you press the new ball joints in that they are aligned correctly.

[tibbs.james 1]

Speaking of swaybars hows the other one coming along Riley ?

and we have a winner

Note the CRC PENETR8

Thanks guys

Now off to my engineering who has the press ( I'm going to let him press in the ball joints as i don't trust myslef )

Edited March 26, 2008 by Jimmy

[hybrid 1043]

Yeah its badass sh*t aye ... did the whole e30 with it and its 21year old parts .. glad it worked for you too

[Yuen 16]

Has anyone used both PB Blaster and Penetr8, just wondering how they compare (I've only had experience with PB Blaster)

[tibbs.james 1]

On the Nissan Z31 forum all the USA guys go on about using PB Blaster saying its great so i guess they both do the job.

[drifty325i 0]

Its going to be a little while dude, maby a month if thats all good

[bravo 35]

How much were your ball joints?

BTW the bentley says whack the inner joint out with a soft faced hammer (presumably so you don't bend the subframe as it is softer than the cast strut mount point you hit for the outer joint). As you know there is no room to swing a hammer in there, so I got a long peice of timber and whacked it from the engine bay - came out easy enough.

[nz320i 0]

Not sure if i should've or not but i just opted for the cheap option when i was doing my urethane, brand new C-Arm for $130 from GAC. Seems alright, not OEM but i dont drive the car a lot

Edited March 28, 2008 by Chris C

[tibbs.james 1]

I paid $150 for ball joints on both sides from a friend who owns a Euro parts business.

I asked him to order me 2 x complete arms as he had arms for everything else

But instead he just pulled some ball joints off the shelf so that was good enough for me.