not much left stock but these,

not much left stock but these, so i need to ask this here. i have an off road only vehicle that only sees dirt for about 100 miles a year max and i think the ball joints are bad but there is no play in the front, do i really need to change them out? if so how hard is it, i have done the rest myself.



what are the chances that they will break, i am not worried about tire wear, just breakage.

a little help would be appreciated greatly, the axle is an 85 D30 disco the alignment is ok other wise.

i tried to do mine about 4 years ago with no luck. i ended up taking the whole front end out and having them pressed out/ in by a shop for about 120 and i think the joints were about the same. i think it is actually time to do it again if you find a good way to do it let me know and we can have a ball joint party.

Jack the front up off the ground and see if there's movement.

And yes if there is they can break.

Hell they can break if you put enough stress on them even when they're new. I would def. change those out before you break one on the trail... it would really suck to have to change one there.

Oh yeah, and you'll probably need a torch to get them out... I tried a ball joint puller, air hammer, and all sorts of random cuss words and ended up cutting one out on each side when I did the job... I forget if it was the upper or lower, but it was the same one on both sides that I could not get out under any normal circumstance.

Good luck.

is it safe to blow threw them with the torch. im willing to try i know how to cut a straight line. and it would cut the cost in half.

I found a ball joint press in my possibles box, something I´d Picked up along the way, never knew wether I´d use it or not. Think it was a press for a 1 ton (or larger) truck for like 2 1/4" ball joints, had some flat Plate metal stock 1/4" thick and short pieces of pipe in various sizes.
To make a long story short, a rather heavy duty ball joint press, with some adaptors, made the job pretty easy.
I actually had more trouble pressing the new ones in. Needed an in between pipe size, finally used a 1 1/2 pipe coupling.
The play in the ball joint and the pounding from the looseness, it probably won´t last long, off road.
Don´t know wether autozone or somebody has a heavy duty press, worth a look.

mark91xjbeef said:

i tried to do mine about 4 years ago with no luck. i ended up taking the whole front end out and having them pressed out/ in by a shop for about 120 and i think the joints were about the same. i think it is actually time to do it again if you find a good way to do it let me know and we can have a ball joint party.

Click to expand...

if you have a torch, bucket of ice, some ultra dawn, a med. or large floor jack, a BFH and 2 people, it's actually not that hard! after everything else is taken off, you put a jack under the joint and jack it up just enough to get all the weight on it. heat up the outside of the C that surrounds the joint until it's cherry red. then beat it LIGHTLY on the side with BFH. it will come out, and if it doesn't, take off the jack and beat the h-e-double hockey sticks out of that joint in the direction it's supposed to come out. (one of the joints comes out in the wrong direction to use a jack on it, but works great for pressing the new one in) now both joints are off.

now here is the part that has to be done RIGHT. if you are quick enough, you won't have to reheat the hole. if you don't think you are, then just reheat it. before putting the new joints in, they have to have set in a freezer for at least a couple of hours, and then buried in a bucket of ice while you're taking the old ones out. when you re heat the hole and get ready to drop in(usually literally) the new joints, the metal has to be barely red. squirt soap on the new joint, shove it in the hole and beat/ press it in ( with a socket on the flat spot, not the stud) for about 5 seconds. then grab the ice bucket that that joint came out of and shove it over the whole thing, and hold it there for about 3 minutes. PRESTO! it's done!

now you're probably thinking that there is a risk of the plastic inside of the joint melting or the hole could crack. follow the directions, and you will be fine. the metal will evenly cool/ equalize temp in ICE NOT WATER because ice has to go through 2 phase changes while absorbing the heat. if you were to stick it in straight water the C would probably crack from cooling down too fast. my old man uses that method on farm equipment/vehicles so he doesn't have to buy a dozen or so tools for different applications. he helped me do it on mine a while back.