[Vwdiesel] Follow-up Ball Joint Extraction

[Mary Beth and Chris Geiser]

Just pulled drivers side apart yesterday to get the drive shaft out -
was harder getting apart than I remembered, but jacks / prying / and a
bigger hammer was all it took.  Did take about 45 min of monkeying
though and my lower control arm is slightly worse for the wear...

Chris



-----Original Message-----
From: vwdiesel-admin at vwfans.com [mailto:vwdiesel-admin at vwfans.com] On
Behalf Of Nate Wall
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 8:35 AM
To: Val Christian; vwdiesel at vwfans.com
Subject: Re: [Vwdiesel] Follow-up Ball Joint Extraction

Wow, and I thought I had a rough time replacing my tie
rod ends (ended up being an all weekend job). Years
ago I replaced the ball joints in the Jetta, and as I
recall, they came out no problem whatsoever after the
through/clamp bolt was removed.

--Nate
--- Val Christian <val at swamps.roc.ny.us> wrote:
> Several months ago I posted here in frustration over
> ball joints which
> were nearly impossible to extract from the front
> wheel hub casting.
> This was on my A2 91 Jetta, with 200K+ miles.
> I'm pretty stubborn (no, not another shameless
> passive IR gun lead-in),
> and I spent allot of time on the ball joints.
> Here's what I did..
>
> -beat on it.
>
> -spread the hub clamp (that wraps the ball joint)
> with a drag link.
> Hammering in the draglink tool, and then cranking on
> it with a
> breaker bar appears to work.  At least at destroying
> the drag
> link too.
>
> -used all sorts of penetrants and other potions.
>
> -used a rock smashing chisel (5 foot long) as a
> prybar,
> leveraging against the hub casting and the lower
> control
> arm.  Mostly bent up the lower control arm.
>
> -did more of the above, using hydraulic jacks to
> preload
> everything, and then beat with a 3# hammer.  Again,
> mostly
> bent up (more) the lower control arm.
>
> -applied heat to ball joint through bolt hole, using
> jewelers tip on aircraft torch (2 cu ft tip).
> Heated
> several cycles.  After applying the giant toothpick
> (that rock smashing chisel), I eventually got the
> right
> side off.  I estimate I spent 8 to 10 hours.
> Probably
> should have used more force, or replaced the ball
> joint.
>
> -left side attacked with vengance mechanically.
> Then tried
> heat.  No avail.  Upped to a 4 cu ft tip on torch,
> and managed
> to nick the pvc boot on CV joint (replaced with
> rubber style).
> The PVC boot was OE, so after 200K+, I suppose it
> was ready for
> replacement anyway.
>
> -higher heat approach wasn't yielding results, so on
> a nightly
> basis, I saturated the area with PB penetrant for
> three weeks,
> until I had a chance to go after things again.  No
> results.
>
> -Applied giant toothpick , with the multiple
> hydraulic jacks
> to the problem, and heated the clamp on the hub
> several times.
> Again hammered drag link tool into the gap to help
> spread it.
> Between heating and spreading with the drag link,
> things started
> moving with hammer blows.  It seemed like an
> inordinate number
> of blows, but eventually the ball joint seperated.
>
> I replaced the strut cartridges, and did the brakes
> (more on this
> later) and reassembled everything.  The front end
> was not measured,
> but the alignment behaves like I didn't change it.
> I did have an
> unexpected outer CV joint boot replacement, but
> those are cheap
> parts ($7).
>
> The struts rattled when driving in the grass, but
> not on the road.
> Took off the strut tower top nuts on the shock/strut
> and tightened the
> intermediate nut with a screwdriver and hammer (no
> spanner the right
> size, and I didn't want to grind one from a socket).
>  Drove again,
> and tightened again a couple of iterations.  Things
> are now quiet,
> and everything appears to work OK.  And the front
> end appears
> to still have very good, if not excellent alignment
> and handling.
> I'll measure the camber and toe one of these
> evenings, just to be
> sure.
>
> Thanks for the suggestions and support.
>
> Val
>
>
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> vwdiesel at vwfans.com
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