Upper ball joints

[SUBURBAN5]

Awesome combo. Love the stance

 

[Schurkey]

The trick for upper BJs is to remove the upper control arm, drill the rivets out in a drill press.

While the upper arm is out...shove in Poly control arm bushings at the same time.

Or buy a complete control arm assembly, with new rubber bushings and new BJs. If you use rubber bushings, the truck MUST be at normal ride height before you tighten the control arm mounting bolts.

 

[boy&hisdogs]

It's worth it to just buy new UCAs with the balljoints already in them. You can even get moog ones like that. You get your upper ball joints AND control arm bushings done with only 3 bolts!

 

[CKVortec]

The trick for upper BJs is to remove the upper control arm, drill the rivets out in a drill press.

While the upper arm is out...shove in Poly control arm bushings at the same time.

Or buy a complete control arm assembly, with new rubber bushings and new BJs. If you use rubber bushings, the truck MUST be at normal ride height before you tighten the control arm mounting bolts.

I can swap upper ball joints in about 10 minutes per side with a chisel bit and a round punch bit on an air hammer, so I'd say your trick isn't so tricky.
excellent point about tightening the mounting bolts at ride height! That applies to most everything in the suspension, leaf springs too.

 

[Schurkey]

I can swap upper ball joints in about 10 minutes per side with a chisel bit and a round punch bit on an air hammer, so I'd say your trick isn't so tricky.

But you're still left with failing upper control arm bushings.

There's zero point to putting in ball joints if you're not going to verify the bushings, too. The bushings wipe out as fast as the ball joints do in most cases.

Removing the entire upper arm makes more sense, whether you replace the arm with "all new" or just shove bushings and ball joint into the original arm.

Also gives you access to knock-out the alignment holes if desired.