After 35 or so years I have finally learned how to remove tapered ball joints/tie rod ends. Up until now I have just used the normal reverse clamp separator, cranking it down until the joint pops apart. Sometimes you have to really screw the thing down to get it to come apart.
Well on my old BMW the control arm ball joints have long tapers and were pretty much welded together after almost 19 years. I broke my separator trying to get the first joint apart, and after buying a new one I didn't want to break a second tool. I searched around on the Internet a bit and someone said to tap the ball joint body side-to-side as you apply pressure. Boy did that work! Just a few turns of the screw on the separator and a few taps of the ball joint side and BANG the thing came apart! Wow, much less work than just blindly screwing the thing down waiting for it to pop.
Anyway in case someone else hasn't heard this trick I thought I would post.
Well on my old BMW the control arm ball joints have long tapers and were pretty much welded together after almost 19 years. I broke my separator trying to get the first joint apart, and after buying a new one I didn't want to break a second tool. I searched around on the Internet a bit and someone said to tap the ball joint body side-to-side as you apply pressure. Boy did that work! Just a few turns of the screw on the separator and a few taps of the ball joint side and BANG the thing came apart! Wow, much less work than just blindly screwing the thing down waiting for it to pop.
Anyway in case someone else hasn't heard this trick I thought I would post.
