Red neck lower ball joint removal

[funola]

I've paid a garage to remove a lower ball joint 2 years ago. This was the right front on my 83 300D which was squeaking. 2 guys wearing goggles, with the knuckle in a big vise, one guy held a brass hammer against the ball joint, the other swung a sledge hammer (in a chopping wood swing) on the brass hammer. It took a few blows and the ball joint popped out.

Since my left front has been squeaking for some time and it was wearing the tires unevenly I decided to replace the ball joint since I just put new tires on.

I always wanted to try this method which I had in my head for quite some time.


Since I do not have a big vise nor did I have a helper, I dug a hole in the ground with a pipe about 6 inches deep, placed a 3" square plate of steel 1/8" thick in the hole for support, wrapped the knuckle in old jeans cloth and buried it in the hole and tamped the earth around it to hold it upright and solidly supported by the earth. All tools used are in the pic.




I moved the socket out of the way to show progress. This is after about 4 strikes with the hammer, the ball joint moved a little bit.




After about 15 strikes with the hammer, the ball joint is out! This was really easy. It took less than 10 minutes from start to finish. Now I have to borrow the Autozone ball joint press to install the new Lemforder ball joint.