Ball joint notes

[skylark]

I did all 4 ball joints and both CV shafts on the dually. It was a job that I've never done before. I was confident that I could do them but I learned a few things along the way. First, is isn't that bad. I was intimidated by the job at first so I bought an air hammer, chisel set and a pickle fork set. I also rented a ball joint press from autozone. Make sure that you use a ton of lube on the threads of the ball joint press and make sure that you have a big cheater bar, mine was 4 feet long and that almost wasn't enough. Even with a bunch of lube the threads started to gall. I fought the joints with the air hamme pickle fork combo and it just wasn't getting the job done even at 140psi. Finally I used a river cutter on the rivets and then the punch and air hammer to knock them out. The rivet cutter was freakin awesome! Two seconds of air hammer and the heads were gone. I ended up using my pitman arm puller to get the ball joint out of the knuckle and it was super easy, a minute of work per ball joint vs. the hour plus that got me nowhere with the pickle fork. Otherwise the tools were basic hand tools.
I did have a major parts problem though. When I ordered the CV shafts I saw that they were available with and without the ABS tone ring. Our truck has ABS so I ordered them with the tone ring. It turns out that the hub/bearing assembly has the tone ring, not the CV shaft. The very last thing that I did before putting the tire on was torque the axle nut. When I did the tone ring hit the ball joint. You can only imaging the joy I had going through my head about having to tear the whole damn thing apart again. I thought about it for a minute and pulled the sway bar link back out, unbolted the 6 bolts at the diff and removed the axle nut. I can't tell you how happy I was to discover that you don't have to disassemble the front end to change a CV shaft! A quick hit with the air hammer and punch and the tone ring dropped right off and I was back in business.
Also, there is a seal that goes in the back side of the knuckle that keeps dirt and grime away from the hub/bearing. I replaced it as well.

 

[volunteerff21]

When I did mine I found out about the clearance issues with the CV shaft tone ring the hard way as well.

Also bent a ball joint press trying to get my drivers side lower out. Had a 4' snap-on 3/4" ratchet with a cheater pipe, and me and one of my buddies pushing and pulling for all we were worth. Darn thing sounded like a gunshot when it finally let loose.

 

[skylark]

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[volunteerff21]

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Looks familiar!

 

[highspeed]

Did you try heating up the area with a torch first. That always does the trick for me........no need for a 4ft pipe, that seems scary

 

[benz88]

Mine were easy. All We did was take off the calipers and rotors. pulled the tie rod and then hit the rivets with a Air Chisel. Followed by the balljoint press with an air impact and boom both were out. Had all 4 fronts done in an hour and half. Book time was 4.5 hours or so on Mitchel

 

[96-1500]

I had to pull a CV one time for some reason that I had installed that day (I forget why now...I screwed something up, anyway), and learned the same trick you did about the sway bar link.

Funny I didn't have as much problem with my ball joints coming out as you. Just a 1/2" breaker bar did the trick for me. And I live in MAJOR rust country, too.

I bought my ball joint press for $100 at princess auto. Best tool I ever bought. I use it all the time to compress calipers, and without any attachments it happens to be the perfect size to press out stubborn u-joints from yokes. I remember using it on other vehicles as well for various repairs.

I factored it into the cost of doing my ball joints the first time, and the second and third time (on different vehicles) it was "free". A well spent hundred bucks.