Coaldigger

Just figured I'd share my recent experience with ball joints on the passenger side of my 01 RAM 2500 Quad Cab 4x4 5.9L CTD HO.

Using the trusty ole Hayne's Manual and a ball joint press that I rented from Advanced Auto I decided to set out upon this adventure never having changed ball joints before on any vehicle. Bearings yea, U-joints yea, ball joints no....

The night before I took the wheel off and gave everything a good dose of PB Blaster, and failed to realize that the caliper mount bolts, and the hub to knuckle bolts where "special". So on the day of the big project I find myself searching for 12 point sockets which of course can't be found locally and requires a trip to Sears 30 miles away. Got em, okay, we're good to go. The caliper mount comes off, the hub to knuckle bolts come out. Nice. Hmmm, the hub seems to be siezed up in the knuckle. Hayne's manual says "The hub may become seized blah blah blah, if so take to an auto repair shop" Okay, so this is a book that tells me how to tear down the entire truck including the engine, and fix it so I don't have to take it to a repair shop, and yet, they have no advice for this simple task other than to take it to a fricking repair shop. Money well spent I see. We whipped out a chisel and started trying to get a bite on it to wedge it out. After an hour of beating, and getting nowhere I check DTR.

I found the niftly little trick about putting the hub to knuckle bolts back in, all the way up to a 1/4" and start smacking or pressing the bolts. Wonderful! To bad we warped the hub assembly bolt holes with the hammer and chisel so now the two top bolts won't go back in. The bottoms go in so we commence to smacking them with sockets on em, won't budge after an hour, so I go to the steering wheel method, put a socket extention on wedge it in there and turn the wheel, still won't come off. After 2 hours of trying my cousin comes in with a hub puller. We slap that bad boy on and start giving it all we got. Turns out those hub bearing assemblies do come apart! Checked on the price for one at Advanced Autoparts. $354 and none in stock anywhere, not even at the manufacturere BCA. That's when I went from a couple of beers to a few shots of shine. Well at least we can finally get the knuckle off and change the ball joints.

Top one presses out no problem, bottom one on the other hand, not so easy. I had to get my butt in bed for work the next day, so we gave up after an hour. If they had only cast the axle housing to be square on the bottom so the press would fit on it with out being cockeyed. Over the next three days after I'd get out of the mines we'd heat and beat on that thing, press it, soak it with PB blaster, try using a bottle jack on it and it still didn't budge. I tried every trick, letting it sit with pressure on it, etc, nothing worked. Just before we brought out the Oxy/Acetylene to cut it out a miracle occured and it started pressing out, not before we had to grind off the edges where we mushroomed it trying to beat it. I think it may have been where I heated the top of the ball joint with propane and then doused it with cold water. New ball joints get pressed in and then we start knocking the hub assembly out of the knuckle from the back side (what's left of it). It still takes 30 minutes using a 5lb hammer and a large punch to get that thing out. We thought about having the hub bearing assembly pressed back together at a shop, but since the bolt holes had been warped (egged) with a chisel, I decided to check Napa who had them in stock for about $250.

So, after spending 8 hours on it Sunday, and 3-4 hours a day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we finally got it all back together and done Thursday.

Lessons learned: Chisels are bad, hub pullers are bad, Hayne's needs a swift kick to the nuts, the DTR Search feature is the shizzle, someone should sue Chrysler for not using anti-sieze during factory assembly, and you really need oxy acetylene torches to heat things up, a propane torch won't quite do the trick.

At least having done it myself I know what damage I inflicted and had to fix, something you don't always know when taking it to a repair shop.

slim51015

Now you know why repair shops charge so much.

PChouinard

I know the feeling. I was working on the wife's Grand Cherokee front brakes. Of course it's 4x4. Two trips to the store for tools to get the calipers and the caliper mounts off the passenger side. I then move over to the driver side and there it is is, a shredded cv boot. I'm heading out of town tomorrow and I just ran out of time. The simplest problems always end up taking the most time. It never fails.....

crane 1

When my hubs pulled apart doing the same thing you did, I cleaned and regreased them with synthetic extreme pressure grease and put them back together. The two halves just snapped back where they belong. That was three years and 120,000 miles ago. No problems so far.

safirenfish

coaldigger-
that story left me on the floor laughing like a fool. i just did my buddies a few weeks ago and know what you went thru. i had the advantage of using a 1" impact for the press and it still faught me some. have to do my truck soon and i will be using the same impact gun. i also used a buddies 1/2" sears titanium impact gun and i'll tell you what, when mine takes a dump- that is the gun i am gonna buy. hardest hitting impact i have ever used. worked like a champ for me. my truck has been to the texas coast quite a few times and i know that hub is gonna be a bugger to get off. did you happen to try a plasma cutter on those joints? reason i ask is because i don't have a torch but i do have plasma........enjoyed your post, better luck next time.
bill

WestTN

Kinda makes you wonder why they bothered to put bolts in them, doesn't it?

Harbor Diesel

I feel your pain! When I bought my truck from the dealer, (bought it used with 88k) I found the bad ball joints and the dealer agreed to replace them so we could make the deal. The only problem was the dealer knew they were in over their heads with this job, so they farmed it out to a front end shop near by. Well the real fun started there. Since my truck originally came from Michigan, it would seem that it had seen its fair share of road salt and the like from more than one northern winter! Soooo they had to beat, heat and anything else they could think of to get things apart. Got a call the next day from the shop and the manager let me know how difficult it was to get those darn joints out, but rest assured its perfect now! Well not so fast. After picking up the truck and driving it, it seemed great, so on to the highway for that 70 mile trip home and so far so good. Got to the edge of the driveway and tapped on the brakes and my forehead somehow almost went through the windshield! Seemed like the brakes just locked up! A little further investigation showed that both front wheels were turning like my sons matchbox cars. Apparently a little too much heat caused all the grease in the bearings to melt and drip out and a 70 mile drive at 65mph finished them off! A week later, a nice flatbed ride, lots of yelling, cursing and threats, they agreed to pay for the tow and the new wheel bearings. So you are so right when you said that by doing it your self at least you know what you damaged so you can fix it before you go on that next trip and find your self watching your front wheels fly off!

GFB

LOL I feel your pain. My wife's old 03 came from michigan and I had a similar experience changing out the 4 ball joints. I pulled one hub apart just like you did. I had to toch off both brake rotors and one of the hub housings after I ripped it apart. Then came the mess of pressing out the joints. It took a lot of heat and a monster impact on the ball joint press.

I learned that using a big posilock puller to put tension on the hub/bearing and then using an air chisel around the outsides helps break the hub free. A torch comes in handy too. My truck came from Wisconsin--I dread the day I have to change the joints in it.

SIXSLUG

Oh my , you really got me gong on this one....I'm not laughing at you just with you. That was well writtten. These ball joints are a nightmare if things are sticking. I learned the hard way many times over the years so I took mine to a shop and let them do it. Of course the mech said piece of cake everything came right out. He does these all the time and that got me to thinking that I know there's a lot of these trucks running around but this front end must be a real problem. There's no substitute for going w/ the best aftermarket parts you can get if you're planning on keeping the truck for a while. Check my sig! Congratulations on a fine DIY! Kurt

Chevyboy51

22 lbs sledge works good

Mountaineer

I haven't had the chance to enjoy doing this job yet, but I do have to ask, if they were that hard to get out , were the joints really that bad?
How do you know if they are bad to start with?
I was always told, with the tire off the ground " Just try shaking it "
I guess I would just figure they would come out alot easier if they were in worse shape.

Coaldigger

I'm glad you all liked the read. It's a cussin fight no matter which way you go, doin it yourself or paying high dollar at a shop and hoping the mechanic has more competency than a torch wielding ape on amphetamines.

safirenfish I didn't have a plasma cutter, but I dont' think it will work quite as well. A torch is good to heat up the knuckle so it will expand and hopefully release the hub assembly, or heating the metal around the ball joints similarly. Sometimes you can heat the actual object that's froze up (like a bolt, or a ball joint), get it red hot and then immediately cool it with water. That will cause it to expand and then rapidly contract to free it up ( saw it done on a mine fan blade adjusting bolt, afterwards it threaded out like you just put it in new). Ya just have to be careful though. You dont' want to overheat or heat parts like the hub assembly, or you'll end up burning out the grease in the bearings like what happened when the shop did it on Harbor Diesel's (that must have sucked big time Harbor).


The guy who gave me my last VA inspection sticker (God love the Communistwealth of Virginia) said it was a tad loose. When I checked the brakes I could grab just the rotor and move the whole knuckle back and forth watching the slack in the upper ball joint. The lower one may have been alright, but if I was going through hell to change one, might as well get em both. I think the general rule of thumb is that you shouldn't be able to see hardly any movement in the ball joints when tilting the tire back and forth.

Now I've heard it said that you can run with bad ball joints and that it will just cause irregular tire wear. At the same time I've seen em break and the tire shove up in the wheel well, which is not a pretty thought going at highway speeds on a two lane highway with an 70 ton coal truck barreling towards you in the opposite direction (just a casual safety observation: I doubt air bags will help much on that one, then again, it could bag up your brains and save on the clean up a bit). I don't want to take the chance, if it's loose, it's coming out.

Coaldigger

Red3quarter

An oxy acetylene torch is a must with that job. I had to use one to get mine out. A little heat + a BMFH + a little pressure from the press and they came out.

ROLBY

dude ***......i have a 01 dodge 2500 i just got it apart last night. Well atleast to where you can try and take the 4 bolts out of the back of it , YEAH cant get them to break free. I google this problem for like about 20 mins then found this link and read away......wow maybe i can maybe get them off tonight haha. man i spent like 3 hr yesterday trying to get them off. Any more bad tricks you all know? oh i didnt really understand the whole put the back bolt in the hub assem plate that bolts to the knuckle? did the guy who put the bolts back in the back side 1/4 in and then beat it out did the twork or F the bolts up?

ROLBY

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