So i guess I was hammering away too much at the bolt and now the castle nut won't go back on. I think some of the threads are mis-shaped due to the hammering. How can I go about fixing this? Buy a file and file the bad threads down?

 

Well... you can try to retap it, but It may not help much. The correct way is to replace it all with good parts. If you want to try though, getting rid of those first couple threads that are messed up may help. And it's worth a shot.

Next time, hammer on the actual suspension arm to loosen it up. Not on the stud, or the nut threaded onto the stud.

 

Try to chase the threads with the die. Try the file. Then finally replace the ball joint / nut. And do what he said.

 

I'm going to try the file first due to the tap & die set cost hundreds of dollars.

If the file doesn't work, i'm just going to buy new ball joints & ball joint press. The old lower ball joint have 180k miles on it anyway.

 

From my experience the file works better then a tap and die set. However, I did end up buying new ball joints after I ruined the threads again.

 

^yeah when you start to tap the threads the stud will turn. you can try to vice grip the stud, but usually just end up fubarring it. If they got 180k, I would recommend doing them anyway. Every one learns this the hard way the first time

 

Just hope once you do get the nut spinning that the ball joint doesn't spin internally lol. From all the commotion it may have gotten a little beat up. One of mine spun so bad that lowering it onto a jack still wouldn't keep it from spinning

 

Change the ball joint. A shop can press it out for you and press the new one in.