Ball joint problems

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asmallsol

Super Moderator
The project that I am doing now is I am taking basicly every performance part that I have and plus some and I am swapping a local kid my del sol shell for his civic shell. I get my seats, suspension, del sol shifter (short as hell in the hatch) engine, and stero stuff. Anyways, First night, everything went great. By the end of the night, we had swapped seats + rails, all the stero stuff, and two honda were lacking power plants (pictures will come eventually)

Day 2, today, both engines are in teh engine bays. He got all his turbo stuff hooked up. I have my engine basicly competely hooked up minus a little wireing and we both have to fill our fluids. We swapped the front suspension while we were at it (I also cleaned my teins. 2 years and my teins look brand new thanks to antiseize. We were basicly almost completely ready to drop the car on the ground, and work from there. And thats where we ran into the problem. On both of our cars, we could not get the lower ball joints calsle nut on. I later found out the problem

Yesterday, we went to autozone to pick up the fluids, and a pickle fork. We were in there, and saw they had a tire rod puller this...

jic4.jpg

This tool worked wonders. We poped every ball joint in proballyv30 seconds a peice. However, quick is not always best. It did pop them, however, on every lower ball joint, it mushroomed the bottom or made atleast a buldge on the outside

However, while searching, I found a bad ass way to do it

Jack, 1/2 ratchet, and a good shoe method
However, a day late and a dollar short. Next time I guess.

So now here are our options. My del sol shell has integra brakes. Too keep those, we can just replace the ball joints, however, neither of us have ever done it by ourselves, we don't have a press and so on. Chances are I can run it to my neighbors shop and he will put new ones on for 70, with parts and labor. For the civic hatch, now my car, he has integra calipers and pads on his civic spendles (he had to shave the interior/rotor clearance part) I can get a pair of integra spindles for basicly nothing tommrow. Not sure if this person has rotors or not, but if not, thats more money. So right now, I have 2 cars that are 95% done, but its worthless since neither can be driven. One thing that we did on one of the points was with a cutting wheel, we cut right above the damage part of the ball joint, and we were able to thread a nut on it. However, this means a cotter pin will not fit on it, and I am not a big fan of that.
 
That's why you're supposed to thread the bolt onto the end of the ball joint, not only to protect the threads, but to keep it from mushrooming :)
 
You may be able to save them. It depends how badly they are mushroomed. using a grinder very carefully remove the mushroom without touching the threads. Then holding it at a 45 degree angle put a small chamfer on the end.

in other words re create what it looked like before the damage. even if you have to chamfer it a little larger that original, it will work. if you screw it up or it doesn't work you still can buy new ones and have another school of hard knocks under your belt......
 
well I was messing around with an old civic spindle I have lyeing around that also had a bad ball joint. I pounded the shit out of it, and eventually, the ball joint slowly slid out. However, there is a ring around the bearing area that just poped off when the ball joint got that high, and I am not sure if that is for the bearing or if that is just a cover. Eventually it poped back into place. As far as putting it back in, It looks like I can just pound it back in.
 
also, since it looks like I won't be able to use the couter pins, and my castle nuts are kinda screwed from orginally trying to put them on, what material bolt can I put on there that is extremly strong that I can tighten down hard, and will not rust or seize. The normal hardware from homedepot always tends to corrode on me and seize up.
 
yes, there are 2 rings

one that holds the rubber boot over the ball joint. it wraps around the rubber 2-3 times. If you are able to salvage these while apart regrease it.

the other holds the ball joint in. its not a regular snap ring with the holes for the reverse pliers. I removed mine with a small screw driver and a pair of needle nose pliers.

Both the upper and lower ball joints have that configuration. If you did not remove it before disassembly it is probably bent, twisted or otherwise trashed. You can probably just pound the upper in the wishbone. Good luck with the lower in the Knuckle.

With regards to the nuts, I think you will have to buy Honda. I do not have my helms in front of me but believe it to be a m12 x 1.25. That is a odd size threads per inch. I found it at one bolt shop in detroit area and it was zinc plated. Zinc plating rusts fast. need caduim plating or stainless.
 
Oh your from the detroit area? I am from Livonia.

Well, right now, we just have a normal nut on it, tighen down really good. What I am going to do is use it for the next few weeks, and in the meen time, I will be searching for some integra spindles/brake assemblys and put them on. Solve my ball joint problem, and up to the right brakes again.

Now all I have to do is reslove an exhaust problem (sol exhaust needs modifications to fit on a Hatch) and put a diffrent radiator in (found out that my really old civic radiator got damaged in storage, so now I will have to put an integra raditor into the civic) and then my car will be all ready.
 
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