Skylark's dually

[454cid]

Man what a great story. The best part is you got the truck 2 miles from me


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Skylark bought the truck in Florida, it says Northville, MI next to your name?

 

[polar]

My dad lives in kissimmee fl, I live there summer


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[454cid]

Skylark, What's the deal with using the jack handle to turn the screw on the ball joint press? I've done my lowers and I did not have that difficult of a time getting the old ones out.

 

[Big D]

hey what scanner do you have? How do you like it? im looking to get a higher end scan tool.

 

[skylark]

Skylark, What's the deal with using the jack handle to turn the screw on the ball joint press? I've done my lowers and I did not have that difficult of a time getting the old ones out.

Well I had to use it to get them out of the forged lower arms. I also bent the ball joint press as well as galled the threads.

 

[skylark]

hey what scanner do you have? How do you like it? im looking to get a higher end scan tool.

Mine is a classic. It is the red brick Snap On MT2500. I have just about every adapter ever made for it and I have the newest cartridges as well but it is out dated. One of the biggest problems is operator error. I don't do this day in and day out so I don't recall what sensor values are good and what aren't. Recently I knew something was wrong with a parts truck that I had bought I had search what I thought was all over looking for a vacuum leak. I posted the data here and asked for help. A member here knew by looking at my data that I had a vacuum leak (Thanks SAATR!). Somehow even with the manifold off I missed a hole in the plastic intake. Truthfully I thought that I had verified a bad intake gasket and didn't really look over the intake other than the gasket surface. Good tools don't mean a thing without the knowledge to use them! Otherwise I like it for the 400 series. Truthfully, if I had to buy one today I would most likely look at a nice used Snap On Solus Pro. A buddy of mine has one and I really liked the interface.
http://www.gmt400.com/forum/showthread.php?25439-Yes-its-an-LS-but-I-don-t-believe-it-is-LS-specific

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[454cid]

Well I had to use it to get them out of the forged lower arms. I also bent the ball joint press as well as galled the threads.

WOW! When I did mine in 07, the only real difficulty I had was because I had the control arms off the truck. I had to leverage them against the ground as I didn't have a vice. I just did the driver side again, and the 07 ball joint came right out. The Moog I just installed went in with Loctite, so it may not come out so easily. Apparently Loctite is OEM spec, so maybe yours, assuming they were original, got a bigger helping of Loctite than mine did.

 

[great white]

This may sound odd from me considering I'm a proponent of "the right tool", but I don't use those c clamp style presses on press in style ball joints.

I drive them out with the air hammer and press them back it with the vehicle weight.

Air hammer you just keep working your way around until it drops out. Going back in I put a jack under the ball joint, jack it up until the suspension is compressed a little bit and then a little tapping with a 5 lb-er on the control arm slides it right in. In the shop, we used to put a stand under the ball joint and just lower the lift. Same-same.

Only time I use a press is if the arm is off the vehicle. But that's a hydraulic press. The hydraulic is the easiest/smoothest/nicest/most trouble free way, but you have to have the press in your shop in the first place and the arm off the vehicle.

This may also sound odd, but rusty bores got a of brake kleen and if they didn't clean up properly, a quick pass with a brake cylinder hone. Very quick, just enough to clean the bore so the ball joint wouldn't stick.

Air hammer and jack are the fastest method (and pretty darned easy), hense all the boys in the shop used it. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles are done this way in shops everywhere. Time is money in a flat rate shop.....

 

[skylark]

I might try the air hammer idea on the the next one that I have to do.

 

[454cid]

I drive them out with the air hammer and press them back it with the vehicle weight.

Air hammer you just keep working your way around until it drops out. Going back in I put a jack under the ball joint, jack it up until the suspension is compressed a little bit and then a little tapping with a 5 lb-er on the control arm slides it right in. In the shop, we used to put a stand under the ball joint and just lower the lift. Same-same.

This works on the forged arms?

A guy at work pounds them out, and said he draws the new ball joint in with the nut. This didn't sound all that great to me, but then I thought maybe he was only dealing with stamped arms that have much less of a contact area. He was doing one of our GMC work vans at the time. They share a lot of front end parts with 2wd GMT-400 trucks, so that was a stamped arm.