ball joints

[coolen]

hmmmmm, maybe i'll just do the ball joints for now, and the bushings WAYYYYYYYYYYY down the road. the lower ball joints don't sound as scary now. i think i'll tackle it. do i just back out the adjustment nut to unload the torsion bars?
thanks everyone!!

[madslammer]

I know MOOG brand is best; but the guy who sold me my '87 shorty, offered to sell me a whole set of Perfect Circle brand Ball joints he has at his shop. He bought them for the van but never got around to install them. I have not discussed price yet.
Are these any good?

[coolen]

Got my driver's side joints upper and lower done yesterday. All I can say is if anyone here is reading this and is getting ready to do theirs......it would be easier I think to take the control arm off. That was the most ridiculous job I've ever done to any of my vans. I'd say roughly this job took me about 10 hours from start to finish. I used drills, an assortment of beating tools, and god knows what else. The biggest problem was getting the rivets out of the bottom ball joint. There ain't much room there to drill anything, that's for sure. So I'd drill for a bit, trying not to go crooked. Then I'd come a beatin' on er'. And I did this job at the fire dept and I used an assortment of tools from there. I left the tie rod end alone, left the torsion bar alone. Took the spindle off with the bearing still attached. What a PITA this job was. I still can't get over those rivets. I even used my universal joint remover to try and press the rivets out once they were grinded off. That got them started, but I still had to beat the hell out of them to get them out. Did I do this the hard way? I still have the other side to do now.

[BLAZER]

Sounds like you had a day. When I have done the rivet types, I have always ground the tops off flush, then here's where a nice air chisel with a point chisel comes in handy, drives them babies right out of there, much easier than hammer and chisel. Good luck on other side. I've heard some people grind heads off, then drill them out with a sharp bit, but then you need the room.

[coolen]

I figured I'd ask my next question on this thread instead of starting another. I'm gonna get into my sway bar links. It seems pretty straight forward. The only question is how tight do I crank the new ones on? (I don't have a torque wrench)

While I was at the auto store, I also asked about the sway bar bushings themselves. Apparently I have to measure them because there are different sizes available. Go figure.......

[BLAZER]

I personally will only replace sway bar links with poly bushings, just a tighter fit. I tighten mine down until the bushing starts to get a light bulge, I guess it's all about the "feel".... Just my personal opinion, may not be the correct way of doing it!

[coolen]

that's sorta what i thought......just crank er' down til' it's nice and snug. went on call this morning and my wheel bearing is really starting to howl. i know these things ain't cheap for an AWD. I sourced one out on ebay, for a price of $126.22 plus $24.00 shipping to canada. I'm gonna price around me locally tomorrow when everything is open and see what i come up with.

[coolen]

i have finally found my clunk!! a lot of people could over look this, so if you have a mystery clunk, and it's not your ball joints.....check your sway bar bushings!! i grabbed a hold of mine yesterday, and it is all a drift on the driver side. so i went to order my bushings, and apparently there are different sizes. the best i could do to measure my bar was with a tape. it seemed fairly close to 1''. so when i called my parts guy back, he said it is probably an 1'' -1/8. so that's what i ordered.

[tbhager94]

i did the ball joints on my friends cavalier it hat the rivets and i rented a air chistle for the day it was worth it .it took us about 1 hr start to finish.

[safariobsession]

Looks like this job is in my future as both lower ball joints are pretty shot at 186,000 city miles. Reading through this kinda of answers my question whether to attempt the job myself or have the shop do it. Looks like i'll cancel my allignment appointment tomorrow and have them do the ball joints first. Sounds like a job for somebody who knows the tricks!

[WVKayaker]

What safariobsession said. I just got mine done yesterday. Like a new van!

[Moreforles]

I've put TRW, uppers and lowers, tierods and control arm and pitman on my 3/4 ton full sized conversion van, a couple years ago, put over 70,000 miles on it (using it as a work van) without a problem with ball joint again, but motor went (unfortunately, most of the time, there is usually nearly 100,000 on anything before I get it... need to break that habit.

I stripped and scrapped it, I thought about pulling the balljoints back out, but then thought about it again....... salvaged a newer caliper, brake rotor, starter and radiator, then grabbed one headlight, the grill (for the RV)

Two rear doors, a slider window (not that I needed it, but figured what the he.....

I like taking them apart, it just takes a lot of motivation to put things together again

[97CargoCrawler]

Great. I'm doing my ball joints tomorrow and this thread has me soooooo lookin' forward to it. I have a 2WD so at least there's no rivets in the bottom joint. I wonder if I'll still need a BJ press though? I'm using Moog, and at $40 a pop they better be good. I hope it doesn't take too long to get out the BJ's because I'm so loookin' forward to installing my shiny new 4" lift spindles! I would go buy an air chisel but unfortunately I blew my wad on leafs, spindles, BJ's, shocks, calipers, rotors, ABS sensors, backing plates, brake shoes, brake pads, lug nuts, 31"x10.5" BFG Mudders and tic-tacs.

[safariobsession]

Hey 97,

I ended up doing my ball joints the next day or two after my last post in this thread. Not too bad of a job actually. The first side will take the longest. took me 3 hours on the top driver's side. Air chisels seemed to be a waste of time. Get yourself an angle grinder with a small grinding disc, a few different sizes of chisels, a short heavy hammer, and a punch. be sure the vehicle is supported securely when hitting things with a hammer, haha.

A ball joint press is definitely needed for the lowers. Rentable at many places. I rented a set for around $200. Free when returned. Once you do one side of the van, the other side will be a cake walk. First side: about 5-6 hours. Second side: about 3 hours. .....Just saw you're replacing spindles too...so your job might be less tricky.

[97CargoCrawler]

I've already been under the van for 3 days straight, I might just save the spindle replacement for another weekend. It sounds like more of a PITA than I need right now. I wasn't having any problems (that I know of) with them, but I figured just about everything else is getting replaced so I might as well do those too. Now, I think screw it. I'm already gonna spend a lot of time getting these suckers on and working right, along with those variable rate springs I mentioned in another topic.