berkeleying press-in ball joints

I hate them. I ruined one trying to get it in, and I even have the proper tool. After ruining the one I got from RockAuto ($14.95) I had to prance around Pittsburgh to find another one ($39.95... ouch). Then I proceeded to spend over an hour with a sanding drum in my drill getting it to be the proper press-fit and its still too tight.

Yes, I bought the right ones, yes they are Moog and not cheapies.

Long story short, I have now spent two days laying on my back in my driveway for what should have been a 3 hour job. I have a broken finger, my back is killing me, and I pulled a muscle in the arch of my foot.

/rant.

In reply to curtis73: what kind of vehicle?

That sucks. I usually spend quite a bit of time with a sanding drum and/or carbide burr and usually have a hard time getting them lined up. Did you do the old trick of leaving the ball joint in the freezer over night and heating up the control arm? I don't know how much good freezing the ball joint does, seems the hot control arm would warm it up pretty quick, but I've done that before with other press-fit parts.

You need to rent/ borrow/ take without permission a Snap-On ball joint press, your life will become so much easier, trust me. I hold this tool in the same league as sliced bread, caned beer, and wet Bob Costas.

warpedredneck wrote: In reply to curtis73: what kind of vehicle?

96 Impala SS with the special rustbucket option.

Donebrokeit wrote: You need to rent/ borrow/ take without permission a Snap-On ball joint press, your life will become so much easier, trust me.

I have a blue-point press with the extra arbors. One of the problems is that the topside of the control arm is not flat. The way the stamping is made, the backside of where the arbor sits is a good 1/4" higher than the outside. There is no way to put the arbor on the control arm that it works. Its like trying to use a shop press with a crooked jack.

In the past I resorted to a complete disassembly of the lower control arm (including rusty shock bolts, a spring compressor, a jack, working the bushings out of their home in the frame...) and just taking the control arm to the shop press. Since I don't have a shop press (nor do I feel the need to spend 3 hours of R&R to do a job that should be able to be done on the car in 10 minutes) I refused to do that this time.

DrBoost wrote: Did you do the old trick of leaving the ball joint in the freezer over night and heating up the control arm?.

I've tried that in the past, but until you get the ball joint out of the freezer, get the press set up with the correct arbors (which requires 7.328 hands) and get a torch lit, set, and applied.... the short answer is no. I didn't not try the old trick.

I also didn't want to add a 3rd-degree burn to my broken index finger today.

did you accidentally order an oversize balljoint the first time? i don't know if they sell them for that application, but they have them listed for my Camaro.

curtis73 wrote:

warpedredneck wrote: In reply to curtis73: what kind of vehicle?

96 Impala SS with the special rustbucket option.

Are you getting standard ball joints or the ones that are roughly .015 oversize for old control arms that have a loose fit from too many ball joint changes?

curtis73 wrote: I also didn't want to add a 3rd-degree burn to my broken index finger today.

Why not just say that you want to live life with no excitement or adventure then

novaderrik wrote: did you accidentally order an oversize balljoint the first time? i don't know if they sell them for that application, but they have them listed for my Camaro.

Nope: K6145T. Direct fit replacement for 9/16" joints.

DrBoost wrote:

curtis73 wrote: I also didn't want to add a 3rd-degree burn to my broken index finger today.

Why not just say that you want to live life with no excitement or adventure then

I prefer my adventures to involve things like kegs, fast cars, erections, and memory loss.

wow, that's some strange voodoo, I have never had an issue with gm ball joints, especially when using the ball joint press (same as yours) is there anyway it could have had older control arms put in at some point?

I feel your pain. I ran trough 3 uppers on the 9C1 before I got one to seat right.

curtis73 wrote: I prefer my adventures to involve things like kegs, fast cars, erections, and memory loss.

Agreed, as long as it's my erection and someone else's memory and not the other way around.

Appleseed wrote: I feel your pain. I ran trough 3 uppers on the 9C1 before I got one to seat right.

how do you not get bolt in ball joints to seat right?

warpedredneck wrote: wow, that's some strange voodoo, I have never had an issue with gm ball joints, especially when using the ball joint press (same as yours) is there anyway it could have had older control arms put in at some point?

Normally I would say its a possibility, but I purchased this car new with 23 miles on the meter. Factory control arms for sure.

The other strange part is that I've done this twice before on this car; once at around 60k, once at around 90k. Both times I also did bushings so I had the arms off and used a shop press, but my trusty blue-point ball joint press has done dozens of other ball joints without issue.

Maybe I'm just getting rusty.

.... oh no... maybe I'm getting older.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

curtis73 wrote: I prefer my adventures to involve things like kegs, fast cars, erections, and memory loss.

Agreed, as long as it's my erection and someone else's memory and not the other way around.

Oooh... I'll have to work on that

novaderrik wrote:

Appleseed wrote: I feel your pain. I ran trough 3 uppers on the 9C1 before I got one to seat right.

how do you not get bolt in ball joints to seat right?

You might be surprised. GM uppers are bolt-in, but many manufacturers of ball joints fail to address the accuracy of the diameter of the hole that holds the cup. The fit of GM uppers mainly falls on the bolt pattern. They make standard forgings of the GM base and then stuff whatever ball/shaft/cup into it for a certain application. Then they start stuffing boxes. They stuff a box with a ball joint that matches the taper, shaft diameter, and bolt pattern of the original application without realizing that the ball cup may or may not be bigger.

I remember trying to bolt in some uppers on my 66 Bonneville. No matter what I did, the big hole would NOT accept the cups. Turns out they stuffed a box with truck ball joints; same taper, same shaft diameter, same bolt pattern... different size cups.

Buying aftermarket ball joints is kinda like buying an Edelbrock carb that is designed to perform "out of the box." The plethora of aftermarket suppliers and how they categorize their parts can sometimes lead to headaches.

curtis73 wrote: Buying aftermarket ball joints is kinda like buying an Edelbrock carb that is designed to perform "out of the box." The plethora of aftermarket suppliers and how they categorize their parts can sometimes lead to headaches.

Is this why every damn modified car from the 80s on back smells like a gas pump?

In reply to Kenny_McCormic:

Yup. in all my years I've never found any carb that is truly "bolt on and go".

Generally, anything off the shelf will, at a minimum, have the float level way the hell out of whack or worse.

Trans_Maro wrote: In reply to Kenny_McCormic: Yup. in all my years I've never found any carb that is truly "bolt on and go". Generally, anything off the shelf will, at a minimum, have the float level way the hell out of whack or worse.

every new carburetor i've ever seen has come with a book that explains how to tune it for your application... the book that came with my Edelbrock 1910 Quadrajet even had a chapter that explained the theory of how a carburetor works and what each circuit does- and how the ignition system needs to be tweaked to work best with the carburetor... right in the beginning of the book, it says that a vacuum gauge and a timing light are the 2 most important tools that you can have to tune any car, which is something that my grandpa taught me when i was barely tall enough to see over the hoods of the cars he was fixing in his garage...

but most people just slap it on, set the idle speed, and call it good.. then they wonder why it starts hard, smells like a gas spill, and drinks gas almost as fast as they can out it in...

regarding bolt in upper ball joints: i admit that i haven't done a lot of them, but the only ones that i've seen that haven't fit were some import parts from PRC balljoint factory number 642 that had a bore that was way too big, used metric bolts that were bigger than the holes in the control arm, and had the wrong taper on the stud. i saw this on front end rebuild kits for Camaros- one was a 69, the other was a 71- that were from a certain company that takes out full page ads on the back covers of well known car magazines...

so the "T" in the part number makes it a problem solver part, giving it a tighter press fit to compensate for worn control arm hole, uhm did you mean to get that?

and sorry I didn't think to look it up in my speedway cataloq sooner

warpedredneck wrote: so the "T" in the part number makes it a problem solver part, giving it a tighter press fit to compensate for worn control arm hole, uhm did you mean to get that?

Um... no? I mean yes? The "problem solver" (according to the catalog) is a heavy duty ball joint with special construction that solves suspension problems. They're basically the opposite of "low friction" joints. They're tighter and beefier. The whole line is designed that way. My uppers (bolt-in) are also problem solvers... as are the outer tie rod ends, drag link, pitman arm. None of those are a press-fit item.

I guess what I'm saying is, the "problem solver" line is designed as a heavy duty, long-wear part. It doesn't make sense to me that they would take the one press-in part and make it oversized when that isn't the nature of the rest of the line.