allright bastiges...you all win, i lose....re: thrust arm balljoint....

[ryan roopnarine]

took the arm to a machine shop today to see if they could press out the balljoint upward (toward stud end)....machinist sits there for 10 minutes, turns the pressure up to 11 tons, no dice. says its not worth his safety to try to bump the force up any more. its so much force that though the balljoint had .050 play before it went under the press, now has less than .025. im thinking my next course of action is to drill through the back and take things apart piece by piece and see if i can't collapse it from the outside in....i've got my eye on a dodge ram balljoint that i think could fit it if the hole was evacuated.

[winfred]

get it under pressure and smack it with a hammer, that's how you break a puller, ass down on it till it breaks/bends and you usually get a explosive release of all that stored energy, use less pressure and wack it. that's one of the 1st things you learn when straightning a car frame, because your ram can pull 20 tons don't mean need you use that much, get some tension on it and work the metal over lightly with a hammer and watch the psi go down fast

[BigD]

how about applying some heat??

[George M]

Ryan...a little advice because I don't want to see you get hurt....both from a safety standpoint as Winfred alluded to...when you try to remove the existing balljoint and from a vehicle integrity standpoint after you replace the worn balljoint with a generic replacement. The former is obvious...a lot of potential energy can turn into a maiming projectile and the latter...as a guy who designed suspensions...the ball joint swedging operation is carefully tuned in terms of pressure for not only proper play/pre-load/articulation of the joint but also from a safety standpoint in terms of pull out force. Your effort to duplicate the factory performance/safety spec is unlikely with due respect knowing the difficulty. I would not do what you are doing and I have a lot of experience with these parts. If your arm ball joints are worn, I would strongly urge you to consider purchasing factory replacement control arm/ball joint integrated units.
George

[ryan roopnarine]

the thrust arms that i'm working on are not the primary ones for my car, as those just need new bushings for the shimmy. this is mostly to see if it can be done, and perhaps driving around on them for 20 miles or so, i obtained these depleted ones from 632. the shock absorbers, on the other hand, will eventually be re-gasketed with stronger than original seals and refilled with red-line medium shock absorber fluid, sans gas.

[MicahO]

Time is money, and health is everything. Buy entire units and swapperoo!


Ryan...a little advice because I don't want to see you get hurt....both from a safety standpoint as Winfred alluded to...when you try to remove the existing balljoint and from a vehicle integrity standpoint after you replace the worn balljoint with a generic replacement. The former is obvious...a lot of potential energy can turn into a maiming projectile and the latter...as a guy who designed suspensions...the ball joint swedging operation is carefully tuned in terms of pressure for not only proper play/pre-load/articulation of the joint but also from a safety standpoint in terms of pull out force. Your effort to duplicate the factory performance/safety spec is unlikely with due respect knowing the difficulty. I would not do what you are doing and I have a lot of experience with these parts. If your arm ball joints are worn, I would strongly urge you to consider purchasing factory replacement control arm/ball joint integrated units.
George

[Super90]

Yep, the arms with new 750 bushing in them are well under $100 each from BMA. I just got new arms with the M5 bushings in them and Patrick made me a hell of a deal. Still need to put them in though, just don't have the time right now.

Sage advise. Just replace the whole unit.

Be safe!