Upper Ball Joint

Upper Ball Joint – Removal for Trucks

These days, many people are used to turning to professionals any time they need something done on their car or house. This is common but many people don't realize how much is lost when they make no attempt to every repair these things for themselves. Of course, there are some jobs that require equipment that would not be practical for a lay person to have in their possession, but there are other small tasks that would not only be educational, but also rewarding when you see how much money you can save by jumping in there and doing it yourself. If the upper ball joint of your truck is in need of repair, here are some easy steps for removing it yourself.

The first thing that you'll need to do is make sure the front end of your truck is lifted and secured so that you can work underneath it without fearing for your life. If this idea makes you want to drive it right back to the mechanic, don't panic yet, jacking the truck up properly is not that hard. First of all, you should perform the lifting of the front end with a functional floor jack, making sure to place the jack stands beneath the front end of the truck and not under the control arms, as that's the area in which you'll be working on the upper ball joint.

After you've properly lifted and secured the truck, it's time to remove the wheels so that your work area will be exposed. Choose whether you will work on the right or left side first, and then use a tire iron to remove all the lug nuts and the tire. Make sure that you put the lug nuts in a secure location while you are working on the upper ball joint, because the last thing you want is to work all day on your truck only to discover that you've lost your lug nuts and can't put the wheel back on.

After you've got the wheel off, place a pickle fork between the upper ball joint and the spindle, and use a hammer to fit it snugly into place. When you hammer in the pickle fork, you will hopefully break the seal that is cause by the tension of the ball joint. Once you've broken the tension seal, you will have to continue hammering until you break the mechanical weld as well. Once this happens, you'll move on to removing the control arms and the joint.