Lower ball joint bolt spins

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cheese9988

Senior Member
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I think I saw this topic somewhere before, maybe its just me, I can't find it anyway. I'm trying to get my lower arms on and the bolt keeps spinning around when I put the nut on. It does this on both sides of the car. Anyone have any advice? Its a `91 CRX
 
after you put the ball joint in put a jack under the control arm and jack up, the weight/pressure should put the ball joint in place and keep it from spinning...
 
Originally posted by Jeef@Mar 30 2004, 11:41 AM
Use an impact gun.

:concur:

I found this out, whne I was changing my alternator. I had my dads sockets a ratchet and everything. Got it all back together and the damned ball joint bolt wouldn't bolt back down, freezing cold outside and Im getting frustrated. Ask my dad what to do and he looks at me and says "Use an Impact"

So there ya go. I learned mine a little harder than you, I was in a garage, I was in teh wide open country, freezing cold fixing my car.
 
a spinning ball joint will only spin more from an impact. The only way to do it is to load the joint like reckedracing said. if it's not too bad you can get away with vice grips. I have been through a ton of these.
 
For me basically whenever I run into this problem, it's like the other said...you need to put some pressure at some point on the ball joint, this will stopp the spinning...no need for an impact.

Hope that helps.

Jason
 
YEA, some people actually agree with me...

i feel super smart
lol
:unsure:
 
Put the impact gun on the nut and start spinning it. While the ball joint is spinning, hit the lca up onto the tappered end of the ball joint. The tappered end will jam in the hole in the lca and allow the impact gun to bust it loose. Works perfecly everytime. :p
 
ok, I tried putting pressure on it, no go, I put a jack underneath the lca with a small bolt pushing on the center of the ball joint stud and tried to turn the nut around with a wrench, still keeps spinning, what else can I try? :eek:
 
one ghetto way to do is to use a pickel fork and apply downward pressure on the ball joint so that way you have more frictional forces on the actual bolt. then tighten the bolt. May be a 2 person job.
 
:withstupid: when this happened to meh, i put the impact gun on it and just spun the shit out of it for a minute or two- it starts to slowly bite and then eventually it will catch all the way-
 
ahh your supposed to press down on the ball joint not up, I was using a jack to press up? so I could probably do the same thing with a prybar then too.
 
i used a c-clamp when i had that problem. seriously i thought the clamp was gonna break .

it was kind of hard to get it to stay, so it took a little work but once i got it tight the bolt was solid.

another thing to do is saturate both the bolt and the nut in a good lube before you go at it.<heh, that's dirty :D >

that's what i did and it worked great.
 
ok, I tried the jack and the c clamp, bolt still wont stop spinning and I don't have access to a airgun, the car is not roadworthy yet so I can't take it anywhere, what else can I try???? :huh:
 
is it possible that the balljoint might be broken and thats why I can't get it to stop spinning?
 
yep. If that is the case, just go to autozone, get a replacement for 20-30, then once you instal it, get your car aligned.
 
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