hey dablk1,

i replaced the ball joints about a year and a half ago, so i cant recall all of the details. however, if my memory serves me correctly, the drivers side knuckle was a piece of cake to install, whereas the passenger side knuckle literally took us a couple of hours.

my advice:

find a helper (4 hands are better than 2, in this case )

make sure that the inside of the steering knuckle is clean, cause i think i remember finding some debris in there.

i'm not sure if its ok to do this, so you may want to ask an MB expert befre doing so, but i think we used a wedge to open the knuckle a bit.

good luck