Ball joint work....

I found a split on an upper ball joint..... This is not so bad as I have extra boots on hand...

My problem is, I've never split a ball joint front end.... Read my Haynes manual. (big help)... So here I am asking for the quick down and dirty...(if there is one)

The car is up with the wheel off and the steering locked in a favorable position....

My questions are as follows.....

Do I have to drop the bottom ball joint? Or can I just drop the shock and pop the top joint?

Thanks again .... Group knowledge is great..

You talking about just replacing the boot, not the joint itself - right?

it's pretty easy.

start by marking the camber nut (this is the top one) with whiteout and scribe a line across both the nut and spindle

undo the top ball joint nut and lower shock mount,

stick a scissor jack in between the upper and lower trailing arms,

open it up to pop the spindle from the BJ,

replace boot, reinstall and adjust camber.

here is a picture from CIP:

Mango, you're worth weight, height and age in beer, chips and salsa.... Thanks a'plenty....that jack used to spread the arms is an idea worth its own merits...simplicity....

Or short cut the job and repair the boot with that boot Goop crap...

A port-a-power hydrolic cylinder jack is a nicer tool for poppin the top Ball end.. .. But like Allen said you do have another option.

But not the same goop. Clean the boot with carb cleaner at the teare and use some black Urethane winshield sealer and finger paint it smooth with a finger dipped in acetone.. It s tough sets up just like rubber and will stay put I have also used it to fix cracks in soft-seal window rubbers.

With practic it can make perfect repairs..

In my exotic-tool-challenged garage, I could never find a scissor/hydraulic jack that either fit in the space or separated the trailing arms as I thought it should, so I get the front end up on jack stands, then put a vertical 4 X 4 on my floor jack and push against the top trailing arm so that it's lifted about an inch or two (or when the car just starts to lift off the jack stand).

Then, having loosened the BJ nut a turn or so (1/8" gap between nut and arm) I give the top of the nut a rap with a hammer and it pops loose.

Getting the BJ stem out of the trailing arm is another problem, so I attach a length of pipe with big hose clamps to the upper trailing arm and just lever it up to clear the BJ stem. It usually doesn't have to move all that much to clear.

The job is done..... The Toyota scissors jack worked per Mango, and I did have to lever the joint stud out of its socket, per Gordon.... None of that was as big a problem as getting the camber eccentric off the joint stud. ( took two ball pien hammers alternately impacting opposite sides with my tie rod sepperator pushing on the stud..Took all of ten min. and a new section in the sailor language dictionary.) The silliest problem were those wire retainers... After playing with those for a while, the brain finaly kicked in with " There is no pressure in there, use some cable ties." All in all an hour and a half...

Anyway, thanks again guys.... The team effort paid off.

right on, eh

Shoot....hour and a half ain't all that bad.

Coupla Guinness's and you'll be right as rain.