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One of the first things you want to do is safely raise and support your vehicle by the frame so your suspension can hang. Once you've done that, take a small pry bar and we're going to take off this center cap. If you were to spin it, you're going to see a little notch in the cap. Just carefully slide this off of here. That exposes our 22-millimeter lug nuts. Remove all six. Remove your wheel. Now let's remove our 21-millimeter nut. Let's just put that nut on, just a couple threads. Now we're going to take a hammer and we're going to hit right here on the knuckle. You want to be very careful for your brake rotor.
Now that the wheel is off, we have a clear view of where we're going to start working. We're going to disconnect the electrical, this is the ABS right here, and it's very delicate. I'm just gonna come right up along here, and you're gonna see where it's supposed to be mounted to the frame. Should be pretty secure. This is missing about half of its clip, so I'll make sure I secure it in afterward. This purple right here is a little lock, it's holding it from coming separated. I like to just come right in between here, pop that up. Now we'll separate this, just take a peek, make sure you don't see any funny colors. If you were to come right down along here, we're gonna get this clip off of here as well. Just give it a little twist, lift it up, grab that ABS wire, carefully set it aside. The next thing we're going to do is remove this 10-millimeter headed bolt. The next thing we're gonna do is remove the nut that holds the upper ball joint to the knuckle. Okay. That comes right off. I'm just gonna go ahead and put it on there just a couple threads for now. Now let's use a 36-millimeter socket to remove our axle nut. Behind there, there's a washer. Go ahead and remove that as well. Let's go ahead and blast this with some penetrant.
The next thing we need to do is separate the axle from the bearing. I'm going to use this punch right here and go right in the center. You definitely don't wanna use a hammer and potentially damage the threads. The next thing we need to do is remove our mounting bolts that hold the caliper to the knuckle, use an 18-millimeter. Carefully hang your caliper, so it's putting no pressure on your flex hoses. So, now let's just double-check to make sure this upper ball joint nut is still on there a few good threads, it hasn't loosened upon us. And then we'll move down here to the lower ball joint nut. Remove that as well. Take that, and just put it on a couple threads.
Okay, so now it's gonna be time to separate the upper ball joint from the knuckle right here. Pay special attention to anything that's delicate that you don't want ruined, such as an ABS wire. Make sure that that's secure and safely out of the way. Go ahead and take your nice little hammer. And we're going to bonk right here on the knuckle itself. As you can tell it's separated, we can move along. So, now let's push down on this. Remove that nut. And carefully draw this down. Now if you're worried the knuckle with a rotor is going to be too heavy, you can go ahead and use a Torx bit right here, remove that bolt, and take the rotor right off. The problem with removing it like that is you're gonna have to clean up the mating surface between the wheel bearing and the rotor itself. So, now I'm going to take my hammer again and I'm going to come right down here and we're going to hit right on the knuckle itself until this comes down. There we are. Carefully lift up, remove the ball joint nut. Carefully lower this down, remove your knuckle.
The next thing you're going to want to do is support your lower control arm so that you're not putting maximum pressure on your front shock/strut. If you are, you can potentially damage it, because we're going to be using a hammer and we're going to hit right here on the lower ball joint to break it free.
Now to install the lower ball joint, we're gonna want to take the boot off of it first. So, I'm just going to use a nice small screwdriver, pry bar, weasel it in between. Then just kind of separate the two. Be careful not to damage the boot, of course, because we're going to be using it. The next thing we need is a ball joint kit with a cup that's going to fit right up against this lip. We're going to come right underneath, and then we're going to press this right up and in. Right along the bottom. I'm going to use a cup that looks like this, with a hole in the bottom, that's for the stud to go through. It's going to press right up against this ridge right here. Take this cup, something that's hollow enough to make sure that the top part of the ball joint can fit inside. Put it right over the top. Now we're going to take our ball joint C-clamp, put it right over the top, bottom it out. Just check to make sure that the cup is centered to approximately where the ball joints going to be.
Now we're going to tighten this up. As we do that, we want to check this ridge and make sure it matches up directly along this control arm. As you can tell, the ball joint ridge is directly against the control arm right here. Before I release any pressure, I'm just going to give the control arm a couple light bonks with my hammer, just for a little bit of vibration to help make sure this is seated securely. That should be pretty great. Carefully remove your tool. Make sure you install your clamp. To do that, just use these little pliers right here. They fit inside the holes, and then you can spread it. Slide it right over. Make sure it's sitting inside the roof all the way around. If it isn't, just work at it until it is. Now we're going to install our boot. Just carefully bring it up here. I like to try to start it on one side, so I'll go on the side farthest away from me. Then I'll use some pliers and just kind of roll the lip right on. Obviously, be careful not to poke any holes in the boot. Inspect it for any damage. Make sure that it's completely secured. This looks perfect.
Go ahead and take your knuckle. I'm going to start it on the axle a little bit, then slide it over the lower ball joint stud. Lift it up. Kink it to the side and start on that lower ball joint nut. Wiggle the axle around. Should slide right in. Now we're going to use a bar, we're going to pull this upper ball joint down into here. Get the nut, go ahead and start it on there. Just going to take my bar, and try to hold pressure on the lower ball joint to the knuckle. And then we're going to go ahead and try to tighten it up. So, now you'd want to torque this to 37-foot-pounds. If for some reason you can't get your torque wrench in there, like I can't, I would just continue with my wrench and make sure it's nice and tight. [vocalization]. Perfect.
Now it's time to torque up that lower ball joint nut as well. Torque it to 37-foot-pounds. Now what we want to do is make sure that our slot is lined up with the hole that goes through the ball joint stud, so we can make sure we install our cotter pin. Go ahead and slide that through. If for some reason yours is not lined up when you torqued it, you need to continue tightening, not loosening, until it's lined up with the next available slot. Go ahead and peen that over and lock it in. All right. So, now it's gonna be time to get the caliper on here. Just go ahead and slide it right over the rotor. Now we're gonna line up those bolt holes. I like to use some red threadlocker on these bolts. And start them in there. Okay. Let's bottom them out. Now let's go ahead and torque these 248-foot-pounds. Now we'll just go ahead and take that tie rod end, put right through the knuckle. Take your nut, start it on there. We're gonna bottom it out. Now you're gonna torque this to 44-foot-pounds. That's torqued.
The next thing we're gonna do is look to see if we can find the hole in the stud of the tie rod and match it with the next corresponding slot on the tie rod stud nut. This doesn't line up, so what I need to do now is I need to continue tightening until it does. I can see right through. I'm going to grab that locking cotter pin and install it. Slide that right on through and just peen it over. There's no way that this nut can come loose. Now it's going to be time to get the washer with the axle nut on there. Go ahead and slide the pair on. Go ahead and use your 36-millimeter socket, bottom it out, and then we'll torque it. Just gonna put a little splash of never-seize in here, I've got my mounting bolt. Let's use our 10-millimeter and snug it up. Make sure it's fully secured, make sure there's nothing binding your flex hose for your brakes are not twisted in any way.
Now it's time to get our ABS wire re-secured. Let's go ahead and put it in right here. Make sure it cannot come loose. If this can hang around and move around, it could potentially get damaged. Go ahead and connect this in now. Listen for a click, give it a tug. Go ahead and slide in your lock. Now we're going to take our mounting hardware here and just slide it right down in there. It's just a little push clip. Give it a nice tug, make sure it's definitely secured.
So, of course, next, you'd want to go ahead and torque down this nut right here. And that's going to be torqued to 177-foot-pounds. You can do that several ways. If you were to just do it like this, what you're going to notice is it just keeps spinning. If that was the case, what you would do is you can use a pry bar coming straight through these lug studs like this down to the ground. And so it holds it from spinning on you and then you would torque it. If you didn't want to go through the process doing that you can go ahead and throw the wheel up on there and then go through the center hole, which is the way that I'm going to do it.
We'll grab those lug nuts, start them all on there. Let's bottom these out. Now we'll bring it down to the ground and we'll make it so the wheel is just barely touching enough so the wheel can't spin. It's time to torque down this axle nut, 177-foot pounds like I said. Torqued. Now let's do the lug nuts,140-foot-pounds. Go crisscross. Torqued. Now it's gonna be time to get the center cover on. Before you go ahead and pound it on there, just take a look at the back, you're going to see something that looks a lot like a valve stem. Line it up. It's gonna go pretty much just like this. Light bonk, and then, of course, clean up your wheel, make it look nice and pretty and take it for a road test.
Tools used
Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 20 years.
What's up, guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. Today I'm going to show you how to install this lower ball joint, on this two-wheel drive, 2008 Chevy Silverado work truck. If you need this part, or other parts from your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.
We're going to take a pry bar and take this hubcap off first. Go around here, just pry it off. Here we go, pull that off, set it aside. Now take a 22 millimeter socket, and we're going to loosen up these lug caps. Loosen those up, take this center cap off, take a breaker bar and a 22 millimeter socket, and loosen up these lug nuts. Now that all those are loosened up, you're going to go to the other side and do the same. Now, we're going to raise and support the vehicle, we're using a two-post lift. If you're doing this at your house you can use a jack and jack stands. I'm going to take these lug nuts off. Once we get those lug nuts off, take the wheel off.
All right. I'm going to remove this brake caliper. I'm going to remove it with the bracket so the pads are going to stay inside there. I'm going to use an 18 millimeter socket and a breaker bar. We're going to loosen up these two bolts--right there and right here. Once I break them free, I'll get a ratchet. Take that bolt out. I'm going to support the bracket as I pull this bolt out. Pull that out. I'm just going to take a straight-blade screwdriver, get in between the caliper and rotor, and just pry it out a little bit. I'll just compress the piston a little bit, so it's easier to remove. Slide this off, and I'm going to take a bungee cord, just wrap it around the bracket, and position it so that the brake hose is not. Doesn't have any tension on the brake hose.
Actually, I'm going to wrap this up a little bit higher. Wrap this a couple times, that should be good. Position that out of the way. Make sure that hose is nice and loose. This is a newer rotor and a newer hub setup. If you had an older rotor, older hub, and the rotors loose, you don't actually have to take the rotor off for this, but it's just easier to take it off. Just going to mark where the rotor went, because I want to put it in the same spot when I go put it back together, just in case there's any variation in the hub to rotor. You want it to ride the same as when you took it apart.
I'm going to disconnect the tie rod end. You don't necessarily have to when you're doing this job, but instead of just having this knuckle sag and hang over here, it'll be easier to just pull the whole knuckle off. Remove this with some side cutters, just pull this cotter pin out. Pull that cotter pin out. I'm going to loosen up this nut--there's some rust built up on this, so this size might not be exactly accurate. I'm going to use a 22 millimeter socket, loosen it up, and a breaker bar. Next time, before I take this nut completely off, I am going to use a punch, and a hammer, I'm just going to break this outer tie rod end free. Just like that. Sometimes it may be a little more difficult. Pull the nut off, grab the tie rod end, and just sit that aside.
Next, I'm going to take these cotter pins out. There's one on this upper ball joint and one on this lower ball joint. Just use side cutters and slide it out. Same with this bottom one. Just work it out. Just like that. I'm going to use an 18 millimeter wrench. I'm just going to loosen up this nut up top here. You can turn the knuckle all the way to the side, just like that. I'm not going to take it off, yet. Now I'm going to loosen up this bottom one. For this bottom, I'm going to use the 22 millimeter socket and a breaker bar. This one's on there pretty good. I'm going to leave the nut on the top upper ball joint, and I'm going to break it free from the knuckle. Just take a hammer and give it a tap. I was able to release it.
Before I take that nut off the upper one, I'm going to release this lower one. You can take a hammer and try to release it, like this, by hitting the knuckle. If that doesn't work, I'm going to resort to a pickle fork. Get this in position. And I'll hit this with a hammer. There we go--it released. Now, I'll take my pry bar. Pry down on the upper control arm. Take this nut off, just like that. Release that. Now I'm going to grab the knuckle. Support it. It is pretty heavy with the hub on it. Take this nut off, just like that. Slide that out of the way. This lower ball joint has been replaced in the past. Yours may have a grease fitting and it may not. I'm just going to take a 10 millimeter wrench and take this grease fitting off because it's going to be in my way. With a little bit of grease, take that off. There's a snap ring on the top of this ball joint. I'm going to use some snap ring pliers, get in there, spread it apart, and pull the snap ring off.
Now, what you can do is, if you have a ball joint press tool, you can use this. This adaptor is a little bit too big, and this adaptor is a little bit too small. The ball joints right there. Normally what you would do is take this and throw that away. Normally, you would set this up like this, and then put a socket on there and a ratchet. Tighten this down, and that's going to press the old ball joint out. My adaptor doesn't fit properly, so I can't use this tool.
Because I don't have the proper tool, I'm going to try to hammer this out with a hammer, but I want to lower the control arm down onto a floor jack so that the control arm's not going to move as much as I'm hammering. It is moving, so we just need to be careful not to ruin any of the lower control arm as we're hitting. Also, if you have an air compressor, you can use an air hammer and hammer it out. Just like that.
Here's our old ball joint, here's our new ball joint from 1AAuto.com. As you can see, the stud is the same, the new ball joint comes with a new castle nut. Flip it over, back side is the same. The boot is the same. This looks a little different right now, but when you install it on the vehicle, it'll get pushed down exactly how it's supposed to. Get yours at 1AAuto.com, you'll be ready to rock and roll.
Just want to take a wire brush, just going to clean this up a little bit. You don't want to do too crazy here, just a little bit. Get some of the rust out. That's pretty good. To install this ball joint, I actually have the right adapters to use the tool. Just line this into position. Take the ball joint tool. Actually, I'm going to loosen this up. Make sure everything looks good. We have the big cup on the bottom. Make sure it's pressing on the ball joint properly. And then this top cup is bigger than the top of the ball joint. I'm just going to tighten it down. It's going to suck the ball joint right into the lower control arm. I'm just going to tighten this down so it's all the way down. All right. Now, I'm going to loosen up the tool. Take that off. Take that off. Take the top part off.
All right. Make sure that that ball joints seated all the way down. Make sure you can see the groove for the snap ring. I'll take the snap ring with some snap ring pliers and just reinstall. It comes with a new snap ring, so use the new one. Make sure that's seated properly that looks good. Now we're going to take the knuckle. Slide this up into the ball joint. Take the nut and get that started underneath. It's on there right. Before I tighten that nut up, I'm actually going to take a pry bar. I'm going to get the upper ball joint started because it will be easier to tighten these nuts down. Take the nut and install that. And also, I'm going to put the outer tie rod end and get that started. Now, we're going to start to tighten this nut on the bottom. When we go to tighten this--the stud spins. I'm going to use a 15/16th wrench, or you can use a 24 millimeter and a eight millimeter Allen key. Just going to hold the stud with the Allen, and tighten it with the wrench.
All right. Once you get that nut all the way up, I'm going to tighten that. I'm going to torque that with a 24 millimeter socket and a torque wrench to 81 foot-pounds. Now, we're going to tighten this upper ball joint. I'm going to tighten this with a ratchet and a socket, then I'll get a torque wrench. I'm going to take an 18 millimeter socket and torque wrench, I'm going to torque this upper ball joint to 37 foot pounds. Next I'm going to take a cotter pin and line it up with the hole. If the castle nut isn't on there, that it lines up with the hole, you can tighten it up a little bit. Just take an 18 millimeter wrench, tighten it up a little more until it lines up with the hole. That should be good. I'll take some side cutters and just pull down on the cotter pin. Cut it there, and cut it right there.
I'm going to tighten this outer tie rod nut, just use a 22 millimeter socket and ratchet. If the stud is spinning when you're doing this, you can actually take a pry bar, get under here and just hold it down while you're tightening it. Ours didn't spin, so we're good. I'm going to tighten this with a 22 millimeter socket and torque wrench. I'm going to tighten this to 44 foot-pounds. That's good right there. There is a castle nut to line up the cotter pin, I am going to have to tighten it a little bit. I'll take my 22 millimeter socket and ratchet, just tighten it up until the hole lines up. Then I can slip the cotter pin in. You always want to use a new cotter pin, just throw out the old one. Take my side cutters and trim the cotter pin.
I'm going to install this sway bar link. Just take a pry bar and get underneath the sway bar. Slide up on the sway bar and get that in position. Carefully slip the stud through the link. We'll put the top on. Put this grommet on the top and then get the nut started. Then I'm going to take a 15 millimeter wrench, 15 millimeter socket and ratchet, and I'll tighten up this sway bar link. Now, I'm going to tighten this sway bar link and torque it to 17 foot pounds. Okay, I'm going to reinstall my rotor. My lines, I made these marks to line that up with that stud so that the rotor is back the way it was when I took it off. Just take a lug nut to hold the rotor on. If you had a bolt that was holding the rotor on, you'd put that bolt on now. This vehicle doesn't have that.
I'm going to remove the bungee cord from the brake caliper. Slide that out. Take the brake caliper and make sure the brake hose is not twisted. Line this back up on the rotor, slide that into position. Take these brake caliper bolts, sometimes they come with thread locker, you can reapply thread locker if you want. I'm going to take a ratchet and a 18 millimeter socket, get these snug first before I torque them. I'm going to use a torque wrench to tighten these down to 129 foot-pounds. Just like that. Same with the top one. I'm just going to grease this, take a grease gun, put it on the grease fitting, and give it a couple pumps. Do a couple more pumps. All right. I like to do it until I see the boot move a little bit, so at least I know the grease made it down below. Now remove the grease gun. Slide the wheel over the lug studs and put the lug nuts on.
I'm going to use a torque wrench and a 22 millimeter socket, we're going to torque these down to 140 foot-pounds. We're going to torque them in a star pattern, that's going to tighten the wheel down evenly. Those are good. Now I'm going to install a center cap. I'll use the socket, the same 22 millimeter socket and just snug these down by hand. You really don't want to tighten these because they're plastic, they'll end up breaking. We're going to take this outer hubcap, and we're going to line this valve stem area up right there, and just push it on.
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