Replaces
Frequently bought together
Part Details
Our steering and suspension components are pre-greased and sealed for long life and do not require the extra maintenance typically required by greaseable versions.
Item Condition:
New
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Lifetime Warranty
This item is backed by our limited lifetime warranty. In the event that this item should fail due to manufacturing defects during intended use, we will replace the part free of charge. This warranty covers the cost of the part only.
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Tools used
Hi. I'm Mike from 1AAuto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years!
Use a large pry bar or a flat-bladed screwdriver to remove the wheel cover. Just kind of slide it between the wheel and the plastic and pop it off. These lug nuts are a 21mm socket. I’m going to use that and a breaker bar to loosen them while the vehicle's on the ground. Raise and support the vehicle. We're using a two post lift, but you can use a jack and jack stands. The lug nuts are loose, so you can take the socket and finish removing them. I’m just going to hold onto the wheel. When I take the last lug nut off it's going to be loose. I don't want to drop it. If you drop the lug nut that's okay; you just don't want the wheel to fall.
The ball joint is bolted to the lower control arm and has two nuts and studs and one single bolt, and of course the ball joint goes through the knuckle. We're going to spray some rust penetrant on here before we try to remove these. While this is mostly together, I just want to loosen these three 17mm – well, there are two 17mm nuts and one 17mm bolt. I’m going to use a 17mm socket and a large breaker bar to get these free.
Now I want to remove this cotter pin that's up here. So we take some needle nose pliers, bend it up, get them straight, and wiggle it back and forth, push it back out of the castle nut. Then take some side cutters, and I think what I'm going to do is just cut these off because they're real, real rusty. I’ll fold them as flat as I can and push them together. Take a punch and a hammer. The punch typically fits through the ball joint hole once it's opened up. And just do my best to pop that back out the other way.
This is 19mm. I'm going to put the box wrench on here and try to just break whatever's left of the cotter pin by turning the nut off. It's pretty stiff so I'm going to hit it with a mallet. Put some more rust penetrant on there. Just keep turning it off. Normally you'd try to pull that cotter pin out, but it was so rusty we had to break it. Then you’ve got to be careful you don't get the box wrench part of there stuck in here. I'm going to turn this on just a few turns. Just work it down and then I can slide the box wrench out. Because now I've got it free, I'm going to switch to the open end, and luckily the ball joint is stuck in the taper of the knuckle so it's not spinning as I'm trying to remove it. If the ball joint started to turn inside of the knuckle into the taper, it was just turning with the nut, you can try to put a floor jack up in here and put pressure onto the ball joint to try to hold it tight, and that's really about all the options you have.
Use the open end. So if this happens, and the CV axle is in the way, you don't have to take the CV axle out. I'm going to thread this back down because I know it'll come free. Get back down until just enough room there. If you don't have a ball joint removal tool or a separator tool, you can use a metal sledge hammer, a small one. You want to hit right here on the knuckle. Be very careful because you can break the knuckle this way, but you can give it a couple good strong whacks. Yeah. See, I don't like doing that because you have to hit it really, really hard, and I'm always worried that we're going to break a knuckle that way. So, since I've got a ball joint separating tool, I'm going to use that instead.
I think it's going to be easier for me to get in here if I remove these fully. Just pull this control arm down. Pull that down out of the way. It gives me a lot more space to work. So I'm having trouble getting the ball joint tool in here because it's super tight, and doesn't want to fit. The nut can't quite come off because the axle is in the way. I've put a couple little dents in the knuckle from trying to hit it with the mallet, so I don't want to keep doing that. I've kind of decided that if I took a pry bar and just very carefully pry it against the CV axle and pry it down, I could actually get it to pop out of the knuckle. It's not the most ideal method, but it worked. The ball joint will just come right out of here. If the shield is in the way, that's fine. Just put our pry bar in here, just pry the dust shield back, and pull the ball joint out.
Here's the old ball joint from our vehicle. You can see where the cotter pin broke off. It's still inside the little cotter pin hole. Here's a brand new one from 1AAuto.com, the same exact style. It comes with two new locking nuts for the studs, and a new bolt to go underneath. It also comes with a new castle nut, and a brand new cotter pin. This should fit right in and work great in your vehicle.
I’ve just got to wipe down all the extra grease that squeezed out of the old ball joint while I was trying to remove it, and slide our new ball joint up into place. You just need to pry the dust shield back a little bit. It's going to be squished right up in there. Get the nut caught.
Put this down and under. Just catch these two lower lock nuts so it doesn't pop out. Pull this down so it's flush and install the bolt.
We'll take a 19mm wrench, tighten this down. I’m going to switch to the longer wrench. You just want to make this nice and tight as possible. That feels pretty tight. I also want to make sure -- a we'll go a quarter turn more just to line up the hole with the castle nut. Take some pliers, bend this one up and over. Cotter pin is locked in there, it's not going to come out.
Snug down the 17mm bolt. Nuts on the replacement ball joint are 19mm. Snug these down. They have a nylon locking portion to them. Torque these lower nuts and this bolt to 55 foot-pounds. These are the 19s. Switch sockets. The ball joint is replaced.
Reinstall our wheel. It's important to note, these lug nuts have a taper. The taper meets the wheel, matches the inside of the wheel. Don't install them with the flat side like this; that is incorrect. Install them with the taper to the wheel. It helps locate the wheel on the lug nut side. I'm just using the socket and ratchet to bring these down snug before I put the car on the ground. Torque the lug nuts to 76 foot-pounds, going in a cross pattern.
Reinstall the hub cap. You're going to line up the opening for the valve stem with the valve stem on the wheel. Just push it in place.
Before we start the car, just going to gently press the brake pedal down; not all the way to the floor, maybe about a quarter of the way, and just pump it. This will bring the brake caliper piston out to meet the pads because we compressed it, and you'll start to feel it get more solid as it pumps up
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Tools used
Okay, friends. One of the first things we need to do is safely raise and support the vehicle with the suspension hanging. Once we've done that, we're going to remove our 5 21-millimeter lug nuts. Let's get the wheel off of here. Now that we have the wheel off, let's just go ahead and put one of those lug nuts on just to hold the rotor so it can't flop around. Now, it's going to be time to remove our axle nut. You're going to want to use a 30-millimeter, and you want it to be a 12-point. If you're working on the ground and you're trying to use a ratchet, you're going to notice that this likes to turn. If that's the case, go ahead and use a nice, long pry bar. Come in between the studs like this. Put it against the ground so you have some leverage, and then continue to remove your nut. Put this on there a little bit. Now, we're just going to give this a couple loving bonks, just to break it free from the wheel bearing. Tiny bit of penetrant. Loving bonk. That's moving freely. Let's get this off of here. Let's go ahead and remove these under here with a 17-millimeter to separate the control arm from the ball joint. This one right here is going to be a bolt. Just be careful because it is going to be under a little bit of tension, so you want to make sure that you're safe as possible. Now, let's take a nice pry bar. We're going to come through the holes in the top of the control arm, just so we can pry down. Turn this so it doesn't resituate itself, and then you can release.
The next thing we need to do is go ahead and pull back on this. As you pull away, you want to make sure that the axle is going to be coming out of the knuckle area. There we are. Set that right aside. Okay. So, the next thing we need to do is get our cotter pin out that's holding the ball joint nut on there. Ours is in very poor condition, so it's not really saveable. I'll try to get it off of there, and then, of course, we'll take the nut off. There it is. I'm going to use a swivel with an extension. Put it right over that nut. For me, personally, I'm going to give it a couple bonks. Okay. Let's try to get this off of here. I'm just going to put that nut on just a couple threads. After that, we're going to separate the ball joint from the knuckle. I like to use a pickle fork. All right. In between like this. Be careful for your brake rotor, of course. Remove that nut. There it is, friends. Now, it's going to be time to install our brand new ball joint.
Now, it's going to be time to get our brand new ball joint into the vehicle. I'm going to start with the ball joint stud into the knuckle. We'll snug it up, and we'll torque it to manufacturer specifications. We're going to go ahead and torque this nut to 76 foot-pounds. Now that we have it torqued, you want to double-check to make sure that the slot on your nut is matched up with the hole in the ball joint stud. If for some reason it isn't, you need to continue tightening until it is. Okay. So, I got this lined up. If it comes towards the knuckle like mine does, just go ahead and peen it up a little bit, and then continue pushing it through. You have to make sure that this is peened completely over so there's no way that this nut can loosen up on its own. Perfect.
Now, I like to use a little bit of copper Never-Seez along the backside of the bearing where the axle is going to be going into. Pull your knuckle away, line up the axle, and then carefully try to put it in there. Once again, be careful for your boot. Make sure it's not going to get caught on anything. Let's line up the lower ball joint with the control arm. Can do that by pulling down. Okay. Grab your mounting hardware. I like to use a little bit of threadlocker on these. Just throw them on there. Next, we're going to bottom these out, and then we'll torque them to manufacturer specifications. Let's torque these to 66 foot-pounds. Let's go ahead and put on our axle nut. We'll bottom it out, and then we'll torque it to 159 foot-pounds.
So, now we need to get the vehicle a little bit closer to the ground. I'm going to take a nice, long pry bar, and I'm going to come across my lug studs, just like this. Once I've done that, I'm going to torque my axle nut to 159 foot-pounds. Remove this. The next thing we need to do is peen over this area right here into that slot. That's going to be the part that locks in this nut so it can't move. If you forget that, it's a very dangerous situation. So, I'm just going to take a nice, flat punch like this, come right here, and then I'll give a couple loving bonks to peen that down. As you can tell, there's definitely a dimple there, and there's no way that this nut could spin. If you want to go a little bit further, it's up to you. I'll give it a couple extra wax because that's my favorite part. Perfect.
Let's get our lug nut off of there. Get the wheel up on here. We'll bottom out the lug nuts, and then we'll torque them to 76 foot-pounds. All right. Let's torque them in a crisscross manner. Torqued.
