Hey all,

Last weekend when I had my front suspension on my 125k Maine daily apart I took a crack at removing the old ball joints.

I disconnected the ball joint from the LCA, removed the snap ring and using a rental ball joint press with the proper sized cups, attempted to press out the old BJ using a breaker bar.

Two problems stopped me from going through with the job for fear of not being able to finish before Monday morning:

1) I could not remove the cone spacer on one of my ball joints - I used a pickle fork and casually attacked it with a hammer, ripping the boot in the process, but it didn't budge. Any tricks for getting this out? If I were to try again I'd do it on a Friday night, use a torch on the spacer, and attack the pickle fork all out with zero consideration for health of the old BJ.... sound about right?


2) The entire hub, comp rod, and UCA assembly would flex before I could put anywhere near enough torque on the C clamp press to remove the BJ. Would the solution to this simply be bracing the C clamp on the control arm/compression rod, and using a heat gun/torch on the hub around the ball joint to ease the process? Is there a better way of getting these out on our cars that I don't know about?

Thanks so much guys for your willingness to share your knowledge for free on the internet!

 

1. My replacement ball joints came with new cones. If you're using OEM or equivalent it's much more cost/time effective to buy a couple new ones from the dealership or somewhere similar online.

2. A couple more nuts removed and you can remove the entire upright and hold it firmly in a vice. That is what I did and it made it much easier.

 

Yeah those cone nuts are hit or miss, mine literally fell off when I separated the ball joint by tapping the knuckle with a hammer. The 350Z kids cone nuts had practically melded itself into one with the control arm and I was barely able to press them off.

Strongly recommend getting a couple extra in case they're seized up badly.

 

One of my cones is fused to the control arm, but the ball joint slipped out of the cone easily.... I'm going to leave that one there!

The other is fused to the ball joint itself which is the one I gotta remove.

I found a DIY where the guy used a 3 jaw puller you can rent at autozone to easily remove the cone from the ball joints - I'll try that later and see how it works.

When I try this again I'll remove the hub assembly and the compression rods and use the 12T harbor freight press I borrowed for control arm bushings to get the ball joint and comp rod bushings out, screw those C clamp presses! or not....

 

I had a stuck cone thing on one of mine and I put a jack under the hub and positioned it in a way where I could use a 3' pry bar (you'll have to figure something to pry against) and my friend and I both had to bounce on that sucker (both at the same time) a few times before it came off. Look away tho, cuz that thing comes off like a bullet.

Of course you could do it even easier with more leverage. Which is actually how I got the BJ out too. With the AutoZone press kit, have a friend hold the c clamp/cups in place, find the longest ratchet you can get, then slip a 4'-6' fence pole over it and start rowing that boat.

 

Scraggle, how did you avoid the whole arm assembly flexing when you torqued the C clamp? Did you also take the whole hub piece off and vice it to something?

 

Man, this was awhile ago, so I may edit this, but as I remember - well, first of all no, the hub was left completely in tact - I believe we just (it really is helpful to have a buddy who knows what you're trying to do) put a jack under the brake disk (put something soft between the jack and disk) and he held the clamp and hub assembly in place as well as he could while adjusting the position if the ball joint start going sideways (this was the process for install and removal).

The thing about the suspension on these cars is that most of the parts are simply floating and they depend on the supporting parts, so you've really gotta get creative sometimes. Ive seen people who work on cars all day look at this thing like "wtf? This is dumb". There's no "right way" to do it necessarily..some people can't get the AZ press to work at all, but a general understanding of leverage/physics and geometry is the best advice I can give you.

 

Make your life easier and just remove the whole spindle from the car. Much easier to work on a table than on your back. Also hit that C-clamp with an impact gun.

Your new ball joints should have came with the cone. If not, run to Nissan and buy new ones. If they don't come off easily, you're going to mess them up trying to remove and have to make the trip anyway. Save time and hassle and just get new ones now.

 

I had the idea of doing doing that kind of thing Scraggle but I thought.... "wtf... this is dumb"!
I'll head to the Nissan store and not worry about the stupid cones, and just zip everything off and pray the bolts don't strip as has been the trend lately.....

 

Lmao

 

This weekend I buckled down and did inner and outer tie rods as well as the balljoints using all Autozone rental tools. I did this with everything still attached to the car removing as few bolts as possible to avoid any unwelcome surprises with messed up suspension bolts on a Sunday. Here's the setup I ended up using to avoid bending the control arm bushings too much while torquing the new balljoint in.... Along with a sexy shot of new components on my gross winter beaten suspension.

A autozone rental pitman arm puller made it easy to remove the cones from the ball joints. Getting the tie rods and ball joints out was a matter of heat and a sledgehammer... I tried to avoid blasting the aluminum parts with a torch but you gotta do what you gotta do.

 

Nice work!