Ball joint blues

[Capt. Orygun]

Alright, it's lower ball joint day on the S14.

pull the support arm (after using a 5lb sledge and a wrench to get the nut off the inboard mount bolts)

remove clip rings

use same 5lb sledge to remove ball joints from lower support arm

take a break (god that sucked)

put new ball joint in lower support arm, sandwhich between unreasonably large sockets and use 60,000lb shop press to install

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

It sounded like a gunshot. The short of it is that the socket on the lower side of the ball joint was on the sleeve where the joint bottoms out agianst the support arm, NOT on the ring which holds the joint together like it was supposed to be. Now that I think about it I should have taken a picture and posted it. It was fucking detroyed. The hex pattern of the socket depressed the sleeve until it plain ripped apart.... wow!

So I did the other side the right way and the new ball joint will be here in the morning....

 

[EGProject]

Shit man, you OK? I would have basically crapped my pants in that situation.
Similar thing happened when I was pressing out one of my LCA bushings. So much tension was on the arm, that when the bushing popped out, the bushing stayed fixed to the socket I was using, and the LCA flew up like 4". Just enough to hit my are that was right neat the handle. Got a nice gash and a nasty-ass bruise.

 

[Capt. Orygun]

oh yeah, removing the socket from the ball joint required some sledge work.

The amazing thing was that when the ball joint gave the energy transfured down into the ball joint, which couldn't go any where, down into the 9lb steel plate it was sitting on which couldn't go anywhere, then over (yes over and no I don't know how) to the other 9lb steel plate which was sitting next to the plate I mentioned first. Only this second plate was free to roam, and roam it did. Flew across the damn shop like someone threw it, glad it didn't hit anyone.