Separating the ball joint stem from the steering knuckle is a real pain....nothing tricky here..just a simple compression fit..but very tough to remove. But, I did both of mine with a standard ball joint pickle fork...I heated them with a torch, applied ice, banged with hammer, used pickle fork from all access points, banged pickle fork with hammer up down etc. etc. After about a half hour, with no apparent give, I hit the pickle fork and all of a sudden the joint separated!!! Thank you God!!

(If you have access to dry ice (frozen CO2), this in combo with torch would work well.)


The problem here is after all that, you probably would not want to keep the beat up ball joint in there! With broken boots, its probably a good idea to replace the ball joints. These are cheap. Once youve separated lower joints, the hard part is over. Separate upper control arms, remove the whole steering knuckle, bang out ball joints (real tough, but be persistant), and press in new ones. You CANNOT install new joints without the special tool..I rented one from Performance Parts. Freeze the joints overnight before pressing in..makes it easier.

This job can be done without compressing the spring...Im assuming you know what you are dealing with here (dont remove shocks...these will act as stops)
Good luck

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1984 300TD Wagon, 407,800 mi (current daily driver)
1985 300DT Sedan, 330,000 mi (gone to that great autobahn in the sky)