Hi .. again I am working in my Disco 2 .....I am working in the ball joints.. the upper and lower... the upper one is out.. but the lower one... @$#%.. I can't make it out... so here is my question... it moves out up or down the axle ??

any one that already does this.. any advice it will good to go... and take that one out....

thanks...

 

i did mine over the winter. it pops up. I put some force on it then propane torch heated it and pop!.....no problem. but yeah it was not wanting to come out without the heat.

 

One of mine was stuck as well. I used the ball joint fork to put tension it, while soaking it with PB blaster and preheating with a torch before pounding on it with a 5lb hammer.

I broke one hammer and scuffed up the knuckle pretty bad but it's solid now. Took me like 4 days between making the cups, removing old joints and everything.

Its a pain in the ****.

Also my buddy from LR brought the "official" tool and its garbage. You have to practically remove the entire axle before it can be used.

 

Hey.take a look at the pics... it looks like the ball joint moves down ...maybe it is not LR original..what you think.? Does any one has deal with this type?

Thanks

 

You need a special tool to remove and replace them.
Refrain from using heat especially is you are about to reach anything more than black heat.

You can rent the tool from any Advanced Autoparts to do this job.
T/V

 

Hf has a cheap tool that worked for me
And yes not too much heat.... A little plumbing torch was enough... Heated a little and hammer tap....done.

 

Those are indeed stock.

Just remember that you can only swap out ball joints 2-3 times max per axle/knuckle

Also don't mess up those torque figures on the nuts

Doing this job twice sucks.

 

brother, i may have direction confused....sorry if so. but look at the new ones.....they travel out the toward the seat on them. if seat is on bottom side, it will pop down and viceversa

 

They come out the bottom. Just think about it - if they came out the top they would work themselves out in use! I haven't done them in my D2, but I did a set on the P38 I owned previously and I used a loaner ball joint press from Autozone in combination with some OTC cups for 4-wheel drive service I had from when I did a set on an old F-150. The cups weren't ideal but they worked and the ball joints pressed right out. I live in the North East and the entire job took maybe 6 hours. The worst part by far was getting the hub out of the knuckle. HF has an adapter set that includes pieces that look like they are a perfect fit for this job. A little heat might not be a bad idea, but I would keep the temps well below the glowing range.

 

One other thing. You already pulled the knuckle but hopefully you did something to record the distance between the axle housing where the ball joints are installed and the steering knuckle before you pulled it off. The upper "ball joints" on this axle aren't really ball joints, they're more like a king pin. The lower joint is a true ball joint. You can adjust the height of the lower joint to center the axle in the housing. There is a special tool for that, but I just made marks on the knuckle and the axle housing and recorded the measurement, then set the new ones up so that the measurement was slightly greater with the assumption that the lower ball joint wear had decreased that distance from what it was when the truck was new. Not sure just how critical this is but I do know I had no leaks when I was done.


You can probably make the adjustment by measuring the distance between the housing and the axle at the seal after you put it back together as well, but space gets tight in a hurry once everything gets back together.