what up. I cant get the balljoint seperated from the front control arm on my EP3. I've tryed hitting the shiz out wit a hammer. I tryed multiple ball joint pullers but none fit around those stupid welds on the side of the control arm. If anyone can help me out here that would be tight.

 

well i guess that u r trying to put some springs or something like that on, i didnt take mine off... well because i couldnt. I just worked my way around it! Give that a try

 

naw i need to get control arm off. My *** hit a patch of ice and slamed into a curb at like 15mph. The impact keyed the lca and the swaybar endlink. I've been at the thing for days and im starting to lose my mind. help... if not for me then for my ep3

 

man i couldnt get mine off either, did u try ephatch.com? are u hmong?

 

naw man im a cracker, and i forgot my password for ephatch. But anyways last night i got a balljoint puller to fit and I cranked on it wit a breaker bar till the puller shot off the bottom of the control arm. The balljoint did move an inch but I did manage to smash the two lockpin hole into ovals keying the threads. since the ablljoint definately needs to be replaced I see two options 1. take a grinder to the welds on the sides of the control arm and remove the brake dust shield so i can fit better puller on there(alot of work and most likely won't work) 2. take a hacksaw to the balljoint (that will show it whos boss)

 

Same thing happened to me, only some tool bag cut me off and I slid into a curb. Bent the LCA and broke the endlink. I used a ball joint seporator (fork looking thing) and bashed the crap out of it till it came loose. I used a lot of Liquid Wrench in there and messed up the boot a bit, but it worked.

 

where did you get the puller? none of my pullers fit around the lca properly. im starting to think the hacksaw idea is the way to go since i have to replace the ball joint anyways.

 

Remove the brake caliper (two bolts), rotor (two screws) and dust shield (three screws, I think). Then put one of these over the end of the LCA.



Should take things right apart, no drama, no damage. I did this a couple months ago to drop the subframe.

The puller in this image was made by Sir Tools. Kinda spendy, but pretty durable stuff.

 

ill try taking off that dust cover so i can get a better puller on there but if I cant get it off with one of my pullers that bitch is getting hacked off. one more thing is replacing that ball joint going to be as much of pain in the *** as I think it is? In other words am I going to have to pull out the driveshaft and all that jazz?

 

I've never pulled the joint out of the knuckle.

Actually, pulling the driveshaft isn't that bad. Take off the big nut, tap it with a soft-faced hammer, and the axle slides right back out of the hub. Need big torque wrench to get it right when you put it back. (I like Harbor Freight's copper hammer; lead is even softer, but it leaves traces of toxic heavy metal all over your shop.)

Shameless plug: I do have a genuine Acura factory service manual ('02-'05 RSX) for sale in my "RSX garage sale" thread over in the For Sale forum, pretty affordable. It's what I used when I dropped and built the engine, etc.

 

i was looking for a replacement balljoint and it looked to me like I have to buy a whole new knuckle to get the balljoint. is this true? cause if it is im super pissed cause it cost $120.