Replacing Lower Ball Joints

PELICAN · June 13, 2008

I was going to replace both of the lower balljoints of my trcuk the other weekend becuase one of them has been torn for the last two months. I ordered the balljoints for both sides and from partstrain.com. A week later I got a locking fuel cap in the mail. I was a bit pissed and called the company to vent. I did not want to wait so I called around and none of the oreillys or autozone by my house had two ball joints so I just bought one. I got up on Saturday looking forward to putting a wrench to the truck and put her up on jack stands then chocked the back wheels. A few hours later I have the front two tires off, tierod, shock, and spring off of the right side. It took a bit of playing around with it to get the ball joint off of the steering knuckle. I then strapped the lower control arm with the balljoint still attached to the tailgate of the truck. since I do not have a grinder or chisel I had read where you could drill through the old stamped in balljoint. I was almost all the way thru when the drill bit snapped causing the drill to spin around breaking one the small bones in my hand. Now I sit here typing with a splint on my hand and now that I know the wrong way to replace a ball joint what is the correct way? What would be the best way to get the rest of the drill bit out? My truck is still up on jack stands with half of the suspension sitting on the passenger side floor I hope somebody gets a kick out of reading this It sounds quite humourous looking back on it. If your in the Dallas area come by and show or tell me the correct way to do this, I'll be the little guy with one hand throwing wrenches at a truck on jack stands.

Wingnut · June 13, 2008

Whoah...That really sucks dude!

Drills can be dangerous as hell to the bones of the hand and wrist...My dad broke several bones and required two surgeries from a 1/2" drill snapping around on him like that. I had one give me a big-old shiner too (drilling up by my head and it caught...POW...Right in the eye). It's why I went and bought a drill press...Not that a drill press would have helped you at all

That really, really sucks man.

pm26 · June 14, 2008

Wow, that is bad. Did you by any chance break the scaphoid bone? Those are notorious for being difficult to heal and may require surgery.

daddysLBZ · June 14, 2008

Yeah ya can drill em,but a bit dangerous!!Air hammer my boy..The ball joints must be pressed out,like they're pressed in.Some do use 3 bolts to go back in though...