Ball Joint Question?
 

Has anyone ever replaced the front ball joints themselves? It does not sound like a hard job, :eek: and I was wondering if this has been done? If so any problems or suggestions? Thanks, Dave.

I think that the factory service manual recommends disconnecting the suspension knuckle from the strut. If you do it by that method, there's nothing hard except that the strut-to-knuckle bolts can be a bit corroded and not loosen up easily.

Alternatively, it can be done without disconnecting the knuckles from the struts. In this case, its a bit tricky to remove the ball joint from the A-arm because the steering knuckle gets in the way of removing the bolts. If you position it just right, it can be done.

I removed mine to install a new CV joint. I was easier then ball joints on any other Subaru.

Remove the sway bar end link.
Remove the ball joint to knuckle bolt
Pry between the a-arm and knuckle to separate the ball joint from the knuckle.
Remove the 3 ball joint to a-arm bolts.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like natures Locktite is the only big problem with doing this. Dave.

Dave, it's 4 bolts, just use Locktight Red or Blue on those 4 bolts so you don't join the scracthed roof club, :rolleyes: Tom.

Question?
I have the bolts out but without screwing this up what do you use to pry the ball joint and the knuckle apart. :confused: Something like a pickle fork? Is it just a pin on the ball joint that the bolt compress the knuckle on? Thanks for the help so far. Dave.

In most cases you can just pull down on the lower control arm to pull the ball joint out of the steering knuckle.
But yes if you have to you can pry the lower control arm down and away.
A ball joint fork or tie rod end fork is fine.

Remove the bolt from the pinch clamp, and then lightly pry open the clamp. The ball joint will drop right down (if its not heavily corroded).

They are out! A well placed blow with a hammer and drift broke them free. :D Now the new ones go in as soon as they arrive. Thanks a lot for the help. Dave.

I'm a little late with this, but...
I did mine a few weeks ago and put a "How to" on the svxipedia site.

I do apologize for not yet adding the how-to. I need to do a little bit of programming to accomodate the image format you chose. I'm currently working on a way to automatically (dynamically) resize images based on page/user preferences and preserve bandwidth in the process.

The ball joint how to is there. The other monster I did on the throttle body, etc isn't there yet. I can understand your difficulty with that one. If I do another I'll use a better picture format. Those are just too big.

Yeah, don't use GIF as you are limited to 256 colors. Just use JPG. File size is not an issue for me as my server is going to dynamically resize them. It's going to be cool! :D

The ball joints are in! Thanks everyone for your help. Dave.