Lower balljoint help c20

[dragn91]

I'm trying replace my lower ball joints in my 1980 c20 the tool I rented from auto zone doesn't seem to be big enough for it. I got the old one out of one side but I had to cut the threaded part of the balljoint off to have enough room to press it out. I kinda got the new one started but I just can't seem to get it in all the way all the balljoint tools I have seen look around the same size. Anyone got any tips?

[crazyjim]

Take your bottom A frame off, turn it over take out the grease zert out knock the balljoint in with a hammer.I never use a press.

[bdiamond]

I've always had good luck taking the old one out with a hammer. The parts store C-clamp press would be easier to use if you had a third hand. You have to get the truck up pretty high to use it. The bolt on the press will point down if I remember right. The balljoint will poke thru the open end of the clamp when pressed.

[slotard]

I'm planning on doing ball joints on my C20 in a couple months, and would appreciate any pictures showing the issues. I have a bigass vise (Reed 106, 6" jaws, opens around 10", 130lb) that's a reasonable substitute for a press, how wide of an opening do you need?

[dragn91]

Problem is more in the kit I i rented I'm just going to pull the lowers off and go press them in with my buddy's shop press if it were my balljoint press I could have made it work but I have everything stripped off the control arms allready anyway so I'm not going to fight them in the driveway when 4 bolts on each side will have them off. Last time I did lower balljoints on a truck I rented the kit from advanced auto and it was great but when I went there the last person had lost damn near half the kit so I rented the kit from auto zone which is really lacking.

[barry1982]

I have always used the ball joint press kit. I actually bought an "OTC" universal kit a few years ago. Sometimes you will run into a ball joint to big, or to little.
I happen to be a Welder, and have a good selection of pipe behind my shop. You can easily make a "custom" receiving tube for the press using a short piece of almost any pipe. A lot of shops won't even charge you for a 4" piece.

[dragn91]

I ended up using an old axle bearing race instead of the one tube that came with the kit that made it to tall. I also had to smack the balljoints in a bit first. Probably took all of ten minutes to get both sides in it was just about to cut the rented one down and just call it mine when my buddy pulled up with his kit and the bearing race. I'm going to have to buy a kit and start saving my bits of scrap tubing just in case I do it again.

[MountainGoat1966]

I bought the set at O'Reilly when I was going to do my Ford.
Gas was almost 4 bucks a gallon, 120 mile round trip at 10 mpg.
I figured it was cheaper to just buy it instead of paying out the costs to rent it and make the special trip in to return it and get the deposit back.
Needless to say, when I did the Ford ball joints, the set would not do the whole job, I ended up cutting some old pieces of pipe and steel plate shims to do the job.
I did my Chevy, and those extra pieces I had made sure came in handy.
Moral of the story, if something claims to be uvinersal and fit everything, it won't.

[bdiamond]

Putting the balljoint in the freezer for a while beforehand doesn't hurt either.