7thgensurvivor

just got the knuckle bolted to the strut assembly and the castle nut on the ball joint torqued to spec and the picture of the zerk fitting is exactly the same.

-- Peter

7thgensurvivor

Well, took out the moog ball joints as there was just no way to get them to fit. Bought some Sankei 555 ball joints without a grease fitting that look much more similar to the OEM joints. Half the price too ($17). Went in nice and easy.

BTW, tried the trick with the wrench and the jack to free the ball joints from the LCA about a dozen times on both sides and no luck. Ended up using a pitman arm tool which didn't fit very well, but after a fair amount of fuss, got the job done.

-- Peter

metroman

Hate doing a job twice. I replaced the front left ball joint with one from AutoZone, Duralast brand, for $20 bucks....it had a circlip on it about 6 months ago. Well about 4 weeks ago my car made horrible noises when making any turns. Noise did not go away and I was getting worried that the ball joint was going to fail. Yep you guessed it....the lifetime warranteed AutoZone part crapped out. all of the grease in the joint hardened up and the joint did not move freely causing the noise. This time I ordered some OEM parts from the local dealer for $44 each. FYI the OEM ones do not have a circlip. Well worth the extra....

BTW the tops of the aftermarket ball joints are a bit bigger than the OEM ones so the generic ball joint remover sleeve will no longer work. I had to use a old deep well socket about the same diameter of the ball joint to pound the effer out. Pain in the .... would have been able to finish the job in about 1.5 hours if it wasnt for remover not working.

Hope this helps

BanoOmg

I got the wrench trick to work on my passenger side ball joint, but not on my driver side. Hammer trick didn't work either. I removed the LCA and knuckle together, and tried the ball joint installation tool from Autozone, and the goddamn ball joint popped out of the knuckle, but stayed in the LCA.

I took a hammer to it to vent my frustration. It came right out after a couple of whacks. Success!

Thanks for the DIY!

Wankenstein

I usually end up using a fork style BJ (hehe) separator on ball joints, outer tie rods. To avoid ripping boots I apply a synthetic grease on the fork and haven't ripped a boot yet.

gts

Just wanted to say thanks to BlueEM2 (and greeen01civic4d) for the DIY. I used your instructions to replace the passenger side front Ball Joint on my 2003 EX Sedan. The DIY was priceless!
Also major kudos to Autozone for the free "rental" of their Ball Joint Press. I thought I'd have to buy one, but before making a purchase I called Autozone about renting one.
They said yes they have one to rent. The cost = $0.00!! Yes that's Zero, Nada, Nothing!!!
What they do is have you pay for one as if you're buying one, then when you return it you get a Full Refund!! Amazing!

In any case all went reasonably well though pressing out the old Ball Joint was a b*itch. That sucker was frozen in there!
In fact mine blew apart during the initial attempt to press it out. After resetting the ball joint press the remainder came out with ease.

Can't thank BlueEM2 enough as well as greeen01civic4d for his original DIY on Ball Joints