Rear Control Arms - Help

[911monty]

Originally Posted by bwdz

Don't hit the arm or the ball joint, hit the knuckle with a big hammer and it will just pop out of there, it's a taper fit. It's the standard way of removing tie rods or ball joints on most cars. Pickle forks are rarely necessary and I don't recall using mine for the purpose of removing a tie rod or ball joint for over 20 years.

This works on cars where the coil spring pushes against the a arm such as in american vehicles. This works by using the opposing forces of vehicle weight pushing up against the spindle and the coil spring pushing down against the a arm against each other. The vibration then separates the taper ball joint that joins the two. Just be sure you only loosen the ball joint nut a few threads. I have done this many times in my lifetime. However this will not work on a McPherson strut suspension since there is no force on the lower control arm and hammering on the aluminum machined carrier is not advisable and can fracture and/or damage the machined taper.

[bwdz]

Originally Posted by 911monty

This works on cars where the coil spring pushes against the a arm such as in american vehicles. This works by using the opposing forces of vehicle weight pushing up against the spindle and the coil spring pushing down against the a arm against each other. The vibration then separates the taper ball joint that joins the two. Just be sure you only loosen the ball joint nut a few threads. I have done this many times in my lifetime. However this will not work on a McPherson strut suspension since there , no force on the lower control arm and hammering on the aluminum machined carrier is not advisable and can fracture and/or damage the machined taper.

You don't need spring force, it works on any taper. You hit the knuckle and it will pop right out, but suit yourself, that's just how I have done it 100s of times. If you ask me you have more chance doing damage with one of those forks. A good smack in the right spot will cause the taper to push right out, it works on any suspension and I never have tension on it, it also works on tie rods. You usually don't even need to smack it very hard. Of course some caution needs to be taken, hit it on it's flattest part and only use the force necessary, meaning that I hit and if that doesn't loosen it with one or 2 smacks I increase the force slightly and if I ever got to a point that I think I could damage something I would use a little heat.