Bottom ball joint removal

[keiko909]

Hi all


Does anybody know how to remove the ball joint on the swing arm?
I have tried using a ball joint removal tool, but that has been useless.
There is a torx socket on the top of the joint which i have also tried but that just starts to give way and round off.
is there anything else i can try?

[2226]

That Allen bolt at the top is supposed to be for holding the ball joint steady while tightening down the retaining nut over it.
Kind of pointless since there's no space above it.

You can hammering on the pinch clamp of the knuckle that is holding the ball joint.
Soak the ball joint in penetrating oil incase corrosion is holding it in.
Get a pry bar between the pinch clamp and control arm and lever downwards on the control arm, then try and get a few hard smacks of a hammer against the pinch clamp.
Similar to doing a tie-rod end. The shock might help the taper of the ball joint to let go on the pinch clamp.

[keiko909]

managed to finally get it free, cheers.
now i cannot get the bolt in the new suspension arm to screw in

[2226]

Which bolt are you talking about?

These are but the games we play when we self-repair our cars.

[RUM4MO]

Cars with certain engines, need the engine lifting up slightly to get the horizontal front long bolt in, but on my wife's 2015 Polo 1.2TSI 110PS, there was not a problem.

I've still got to fit new front swivels, I only replaced the rear vertical mounting bushes the last time that I worked on that car, my plan will be to remove the drive shafts from the hubs to improve access, I've even bought in a 18mm hex ring spanner to use on the ball joint nut - in case bi-hex does not work on these rusted nuts. So that means that I'll be fitting new drive shaft nuts and new TRE nuts - any other nuts are included in the new Lemsforder swivel kits.

The correct size for stopping the pin of the ball joint rotating is T40 on the factory fitted original lower swivels as well as the Lemsforder replacements (which have the VW Group part numbers ground off them).

[2226]

Still have to figure out my approach for this job.
I purchased a pair of used arms and rebuilt them with new rear solid mounts and front polyurethane mounts.
They're waiting for some time to get them fitted.

Was hoping to just undo the ball joints from the arms and try and lever them out, but I have a feeling it will also call for driveshaft removal.
Then again, might as well just get new balljoints.

And then last week I placed an order for Powerflex PFF85-201G. Might be a while for those to land.
They were 15x the price of the poly bushes I have now.

[RUM4MO]

I would not think that if you are just fitting new/refurbished lower arms while keeping the original ball joints, that you will need to worry about touching the drive shafts, they only need removing at the hub end when you are replacing a RHS strut - all you will need is need crush nuts for the old ball joint to lower arm fixing points - and new front and rear fixings.

In fact I can say you don't need to disconnect the drive shafts, I didn't need to when I removed the lower arms, fitted new rear mounting bushes, and fitted them back onto the car. But I do expect to remove them to make my life easier when I get round to fitting the new lower ball joints.

[2226]

Yes, I know. It just allows for a lot more room under there.
Decided to skip ball joints on this change. Nothing wrong with them. So I'll pull arms off at the mounting bolts.

Just not sure how I'm going to handle the front bushing bolt. With the new bushings coming I will need to loosen those up during alignment, but they're typical single-use stretch bolts.

[RUM4MO]

The adjustment during alignment should only involve moving the subframe a bit, so buy a full set of bolts should be bought - if only for you to replace one at a time after the adjustment has been made using the original bolts - I've found that the 2 front bolts corrode badly due to a build up of trapped water.

All other lower arm or TCA get torqued up with the weight on the wheels and should not get slackened off after that - obviously use new bolts.

[2226]

Subframe was offset due to a hit to the left front wheel before I bought the car.
We undid a bolt on the alignment rack and the whole thing sprang back into place. Still running on those same subframe bolts and that was maybe 4 years ago.

I'm not undoing subframe this time.
Even moving that around doesn't fix the excessive positive camber this thing has.
Will be adjusting the camber at the front mount on the control arm. It'll probably put some twist into the rear solid mount, but we'll see.
Hoping it doesn't pull too much out of the castor.

Torque is like some Nm + 90 degrees. I'm about 1km away from the alignment shop so I might do a weird thing and not fully stretch those.
Don't want to be at the alignment place swapping out bolts.
If I had to replace I'd have to do it as alignment was being done with these new bushings.

I have purchased all new bolts for fitting the control arms. The ones in there look just about factory new. We don't corrode much down here.