My son and I replaced the lower ball joints ( and upper A arms ) on his 2010 Silverado.
Funny how the videos sometimes miss a few pertinent things.
This being a 4 wheel drive we had to remove the CV axles to get at the ball joint. There is protective cap over top the axle nut. It worked really well using a chisel and hammer and lightly tapping on the edge then flicking it out with a large screw driver. I didn’t have a socket larger than 30 mm to remove the axle but so my daughter hot shotted a 36 mm socket from town. Turned out the nut was actually smaller than 36 mm but it sufficed with only a bit of collateral damage to the nut. My Nut Buster impact wrench easily spun it off.
The next issue to deal with is that the ball joints were original and did not have snap rings but instead had a metal ring that was fused to the top and was larger in diameter than the hole in the lower A arm. We used a air chisel to peel it off and then used a BFH to start the ball joint moving downward inside the hole, aided with an air hammer with a puny compressor. We finally got it out and used my Orion Tools ball joint installation kit to install the new AC Delco ball joints with C-rings. The kit worked great and the ball joint moved with every turn of the handle.
This would be an everyday boring procedure for a pro mechanic, but was a fun father son project for us.
A couple of important tips was to have the proper socket for the axle nut and have a cheater bar to turn the handle on the installer. Also, the socket size for the stock ball joint nut was 15/16 and had to be a tall one. The nut on the AC Delco replacement was 7/8 inch (22 mm). Enjoy the photos.
Funny how the videos sometimes miss a few pertinent things.
This being a 4 wheel drive we had to remove the CV axles to get at the ball joint. There is protective cap over top the axle nut. It worked really well using a chisel and hammer and lightly tapping on the edge then flicking it out with a large screw driver. I didn’t have a socket larger than 30 mm to remove the axle but so my daughter hot shotted a 36 mm socket from town. Turned out the nut was actually smaller than 36 mm but it sufficed with only a bit of collateral damage to the nut. My Nut Buster impact wrench easily spun it off.
The next issue to deal with is that the ball joints were original and did not have snap rings but instead had a metal ring that was fused to the top and was larger in diameter than the hole in the lower A arm. We used a air chisel to peel it off and then used a BFH to start the ball joint moving downward inside the hole, aided with an air hammer with a puny compressor. We finally got it out and used my Orion Tools ball joint installation kit to install the new AC Delco ball joints with C-rings. The kit worked great and the ball joint moved with every turn of the handle.
This would be an everyday boring procedure for a pro mechanic, but was a fun father son project for us.
A couple of important tips was to have the proper socket for the axle nut and have a cheater bar to turn the handle on the installer. Also, the socket size for the stock ball joint nut was 15/16 and had to be a tall one. The nut on the AC Delco replacement was 7/8 inch (22 mm). Enjoy the photos.
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