ball joint seperation

[Jay 735i 0]

Hi All,

Just wondering if any of you have any magic ball joint seperation tricks up your sleeves you could share with me. Was trying to replace the upper and lower front suspension arms (I'm sure they have a more technical name but bare with me) on the weekend and I could not get the ball joints to seperate.

Tried a seperator fork, can't find a scissor seperator that has a big enough lower jaw, heated the crap out of it, smacked it with a hammer, smacked it with a bigger hammer, accidentally smacked myself with the bigger hammer...

I'm stuck, as are the ball joints.

[jager 0]

make sure when you hit it with a hammer, you have another hammer held against it on the other side!

[Jay 735i 0]

As in the ball joint itself (so onto the threaded part and up from underneath)?

[*Glenn* 854]

Have you got any pictures?

E32's don't have upper and lower front suspension ball joints. You have a tie rod end, Lower outer ball joints in the lower suspension strut housing and centre track rod ball joints.

[Jay 735i 0]

Yeah sorry, I knew I would be using the wrong terms for what I am replacing, upper and lower is just in relation to how the ball joints go into the strut base plate (from underneath and from above respectively). Best I can do from work is this borrowed photo, I'm replacing the arm in the foreground and the black arm arrowed that is behind it, which also connects to the strut base plate and the ball joint is directly behind the one circled in the photo.

E32_suspension_arms.bmp

[*Glenn* 854]

A fork should do both of those

[Jay 735i 0]

Indeed it should, but it doesn't. Even with a good quantity of heat and a sodding big mallet, the fork tool won't seperate the ball joints.

[Lucan 196]

I have a ball joint seperater.

Similar to this:

You can borrow if you want a jam

[Jay 735i 0]

Ooo that could be cool. You don't happen to know the width of the fork part on the bottom of it? I have one of those as well, but the ball joints are too big to fit into it on mine (have read that people have resorted to using industrial versions for trucks and buses, due to the size of the ball joints).

[*Glenn* 854]

I have a ball joint seperater.

Similar to this:

You can borrow if you want a jam

That will do the tie rod, but not the lower control arm. We use one like that as well

[Jay 735i 0]

Ah, well it's the lower control arm that is the issue... bugger.

[Jay 735i 0]

Well it's still a problem, cannot separate those 2 ball joints...

Is the base plate (again, not sure of the correct name) that the ball joints go into, i.e. the circled part in the above pic, common to E32 and E34? I am thinking of sourcing the strut base plate second-hand, as I have both arms brand new, as per the pic and can just replace the whole lot, but wondering if there is any difference for ease of sourcing.