Hi, couple quick painless questions(hopefully)....a local shop is having a special for free full vehicle safety inspections, so i decided to hit that up, and found out that my right lower ball joint needs to be replaced. I was wondering if this could have been what was causing my car to shake at highway speeds????? Also I heard from someone that you need to replace the entire control arm to replace the ball joint, can anyone verify or correct me on this? thanks

 

Yes to the vibration & no to replacing the entire control arm.

 

Yes, that can cause some shake and no you dont have to replace the whole CA. You can buy ball joints on Ebay. I did this. They arent too bad to install if you have a ball joint service kit.

 

You can replace only the balljoint. Just remove the snap ring and bang the ball joint out with a large hammer. The opposite for installation.

 

another question then, is a ball joint service kit something that is pretty much needed for the install, and can it be rented from anywhere?

 

Ok, I guess you dont need the ball joint service kit.

 

I bought mine from Harbor Freight.



http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=38335

 

As an FYI, I changed both balljoints a couple of years ago, but that didn't fix my vibration issue (YMMV). Depending on your mileage, why not change your control arms? This replaces the balljoints & bushings in one shot and would probably not cost much more.

 

Id replace the whole C/A too, but there is a price difference.

Balljoints $50
C/A's ~$70 each

 

i may or may not replace the control arm as well depending on the prices around here and time issues. i just need to fix it by tomorrow, so we'll see. Also i found a ball joint press here at my work so ill have that to use. Does about 1.5hrs sound right for one ball joint replacement (ive never done it before) and what all needs to be removed to change it?
thanks

 

1.5 hours per side is pretty good.

You need to remove the control arm or do what I did and leave it attached to the car.

So....

Remove wheels
Remove Calipers
Remove Rotors
Remove Axle Nuts
Remove Strut Bolts
Remove Tie Rod End Nuts
Remove Spindles
Then if you choose to remove the CA do that. I didnt.

 

thanks doesnt sound too bad with the right tools

 

The ball joints from ebay come with rubber bushings. If you want to use ES bushings, reusing the transverse link (control arm) is the best option, IMO.