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IDEAS FOR GETTING PITMAN ARM OFF?

The company I work for had a safety incident on another site a week or so ago. A guy was grinding and the wheel came apart, it buried parts of the wheel so far into him that it broke his femur. He left the site in a heliocopter. I've opened up my hand with a 4" grinder, keep the guards on, wear gloves, wear safety glasses and put a face shield on over the glasses. Eventually you'll get hurt very badly if you continue to work like that. It's a numbers game and you need some good habits on your side.

Mark
 
What kind of pitman arm puller are you using? The two style? Or the cone style that grabs about 3/4's of the arm?
 
You would have been done a day and 1/2 ago if you just reamed the arm "in-place"!
 
mfascuba said:
I've opened up my hand with a 4" grinder, keep the guards on, wear gloves, wear safety glasses and put a face shield on over the glasses. Eventually you'll get hurt very badly if you continue to work like that. It's a numbers game and you need some good habits on your side.
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Yea, no kidding. Serious X2 on the face shield and gloves. You think that little grinder cuts steel like butter? Wait until you find out how it cuts flesh!

(Once you wear the full face shield a couple times, you'll start to like it.)
 
USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK:
A method I used on a full size bronco was to rent one of those concrete nail guns that use the gun shells. WITHOUT a nail in the gun, shoot the joint you wish to separate. You may have to :explosion it a couple of time, one on each side. The shock will drop it on the floor. Worked great for all of the joints. This also worked for driving out the rivits after grinding the heads off but be warned, they will penatrate anything they hit within 10 feet. This includes, but not limited to, oil pans, garage doors, helpers, etc.
 
haha hmm now thats an idea i like! haha i actually dont have one of those, if i can find one i might try that. Do they make an air powered too like that? Similar to an impact gun? Almost like a jack hammer or something
 
emr1101 said:
haha hmm now thats an idea i like! haha i actually dont have one of those, if i can find one i might try that. Do they make an air powered too like that? Similar to an impact gun? Almost like a jack hammer or something
Click to expand...

they sure do, it's called an air chisel/air hammer. not going to have quite the same punch as the the .22 round, but i have a pickle fork adapter for my air chisel, which you should be able to get between the pitman arm and the body of the steering box, not going to deliver quite the force of the puller IMHO though.
should be able to cram a chisel bit pretty deep into the cut you made.
 
I didnt feel like going through all 4 pages after reading through the first, why not take the box off and just use a press to get the arm off? I had to do that on mine after soaking it for a week with blaster and breaking 2 pullers...took 5 minutes with a press to get it off.
 
oh well i definitely don't have one of those haha. I think Im going to stick with hammering at it, just as soon as i get back to town from school for this weekend :(
 
MONSTERxbla said:
I had a stubborn pitman arm also...I sprayed it with some pb blaster and let it soak in for a night, then I put the puller on, tighten it up a bit, smacked it with a bfh a few times, tighten it up a bit more, hit it a bit more. then I loosen the puller and rotated a quarter turn and then repeated the process. then I finally got tired of doing that and got out the impact wrench a follow the same procedure. it the came off...about 1/2 hour. when you are tightening the puller you should realize that a some point its not gonna come off. the puller will actually pull that arm off at a slight angle which will cause that arm to actually dig into the splined shaft, hence the reason for rotating the puller.
Click to expand...


I went through two pullers before I tried this method. once i tried this method it came right off in about an hour. one tip that i can give you is to leave the nut on so when the pitman arm finally releases it does not fly and hit you in the leg.

When you put your new pitman arm on, be sure to check how tight the nut is every day, I did not have an impact gun just a big 1-5/16" wrench. it took almost a week of tighting to get the pitman arm all the way on.
 
emr1101 said:
oh well i definitely don't have one of those haha. I think Im going to stick with hammering at it, just as soon as i get back to town from school for this weekend :(
Click to expand...

any auto shop will have one though, and I bet they will charge you less than the cost of another puller to pop it off.
 
emr1101 said:
Yeah id like to figure out a way to get it there haha
Click to expand...
woody431 said:
I didnt feel like going through all 4 pages after reading through the first, why not take the box off and just use a press to get the arm off? I had to do that on mine after soaking it for a week with blaster and breaking 2 pullers...took 5 minutes with a press to get it off.
Click to expand...
 
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