I was working on getting my blown engine out of the car tonight. Everything was going fine until it came time to disconnect the lower arm @ the ball joint. It was a major pita last time too. What am I doing wrong? What method do you guys use?
Thanks.

 

I haven't tried this yet, but this is what the NC boyz do.

Jack up that corner of the car, and get it on a jackstand. Remove wheel and castle nut. Place floorjack under rotor. Jack up the rotor/control arm enough so that you can fit the handle of a 1/2" drive wrench or breaker bar in between the spindle and the lower control arm. Slowly lower jack and listen for the pop

Warren

 

this always works for us: shoot some wd40 on it, let it sit awhile, then break out the 5lb hammer and smack the side of the lower arm, there will be a little flat spot that u can see on the arm (firewall side), just hit that a couple times really hard and it should knock it free, dont worry about the lower arm, its tough the hammer wont hurt it =P

 

I was doing the hammer thing to no avail. I gave up for tonight. I did spray it with a product that I have been trying called 'CorrosionX'. It has worked wonders for me on other things. It worked on the turbo clamp on my truck when WD didn't. I hope that it will work again. I will also try what Warren suggested.
Thanks.

 

sigh... you forgot to add, sit there and drink beer. and you don't have to slowly lower the jack, just let er rip.

D

 

BFH

[these are my lower-cased letters]

 

the NC technique rox the house...

 

I don't suppose you guys have a trick to seperating the upper balljoint too? That's the really hard one for me. I can't even get the Facom ball joint seperator in there w/o having to move my camber kit to full positive.

Warren

 

best luck i've had with the upper, is to take a hand sledge, and hit the side of the knuckle just below the upper ball joint. (with the castle nut off, or all least backed off a bunch of threads).

sometimes it just pops out, sometiems you just beat the **** out of the knuckle. if it doesn't come out after 10 or so wacks, i usually just drop the upper A-arm... shrug.

D

 

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=211147

 

remove the bolts from the LCA and just leave the ball joint attached.
then you can swing the hub forward to remove the axle
thats what i did during my swap and the axle replacments that have followed...

 

I got one loose this morning before going to work. I did the jack it up & stick a tool method. When I lowered it, it still didn't come loose. The breaker bar was still wedged in there though. I reefed on the end of the bar & it came loose. I think that it was the CorrosionX (lube/penetrant) that did the trick. I will try the hammer method (again) on the other side when I get home. I didn't think wailing on it at 5:30AM would go over too good.

Man, I gotta get better at this. Why do I have spares if I can't get them off easily?


[Modified by civicrr, 12:25 PM 7/7/2002]

 

just beat on it with a hammer. it'll come apart.. eventually.

 

Part of the problem last night was that it was about 11PM last night. I didn't want to keep pounding away & wake the neighbors up. Thanks for all the advice/tips.

 

Warren didn't see this the first time I posted it.

 

take 2 small sledges and bang on each side of the knuckle near the joint after loosening the castle nut. don't bang on the threads. giving it some good hard shots on both sides should shock it enough to make it come loose.

Chris, who just learned this trick last Wednesday while tearing apart a Triumph TR4 vintage racer

 

Yep.... the "whack-the-knuckle-at-the-joint" method works for me. The trick is having the knuckle (lower control arm in this case) in a position to where it wants to just fall straight off. Taking some tension off the upper one while smacking it is the trick there.

 

smack them simultaneously with two 2-lb sledges. It will fall right out, so it must be ready to drop out, i.e. the threads must not be angled into the arm at all. I use the same trick for stubborn tie rod ends.

RJ