I have been working on cars for some 20 years now and believe it or not I have never changed ball joints. I am converting the front drums on my 71 to discs and wish to replace the springs and ball joints. I have searched here but found no step by step info.What tools are required? I remeber seeing a c-clamp type tool to press them in. Any leads or info. would be much appreciated.

While not a step by step description, I can give you a good idea of what to do. The upper BJ is riveted or bolted to the upper A-arm. You need to cut, grind, chew these rivets off. The replacement pieces will bolt into the same holes as the rivets. There should be four fasteners on each of the uppers.

For the lowers they are pressed into the arm. This is where the "C-clamp tool" comes in. Here (http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=42236) is the tool that you are talking about. You can use this tool to replace the joints or if you have the A-arms out of the vehicle you can use a regular shop press to do it. I don't know for sure, but many auto parts dealers like Autozone rent the BJ presses for next to nothing.

Do yourself a favor while you have the old BJ out. Inspect that are of the lower A-ram very, very closely for cracks. Also, I would strongly suggest that if the arm is free of cracks take a few minutes to polish the edges of the A-arm to help prevent cracks from starting in the future. Many people on this board have suffered from broken A-arms. By polishing the sharp edges off you can help prevent stress risers from happening, just like engine builders do when they deburr blocks and other critical engine components.

Hope this helps.

Just some tips, I did 4 lower ball joints just recently.

Removal using the C-Clamp tool set (rental or harbor Freight).

You will need 3 hands to start the tool. It will make it easier if you leave the lower arm on the car. Place the Clamp so that you screw into a disc sitting on a sleeve which pushes on the top of the base of the ball joint. On the other side of the A-Arm, use the sleeve that is bigger than the ball joint, finishing off with the other disc.

The threaded rod will seat into one disc, and the other disc will seat into the end of the C-Clamp. I put some grease at the end of the screw where it hits the disc.


Tighten slowly and evenly. It will pop out after a couple turns.

If you go crooked or don't use the sleeves you will drive the stem thru the ball joint and make the job tougher. DO NOT USE AIR TOOLS, THEY GO TO FAST!

Installation is reverse.

Once you try to assemble the two sleeves, and the two discs trying to hold that heavy C-Clamp you'll see why I said you need three hands.