I'm in the process of replacing my lower control arm bushings and noticed I need new lower ball joints. Does anyone know if I need to purchase the entire knuckle for 200 + dollars, or do I just need the lower ball joint? I've looked on Acura websites and I can seem to find the part for just the lower ball joint. Any help is appreciated.

 

You just need the new ball joint and you don't need the the knuckle

 

Why do you think the ball joints are bad?

 

Acura parts diagram don't show the part number separately but it's available, it's somewhere on this forum but I'm too lazy to search it for you right now

 

I need new ones because they are torn. Anybody have any tips on how to remove the old ball joint and put the new one in? I've looked on here but can't find an exact explanation. I know I'll need a ball joint separator to remove it. But will I need anything special to put it in?

 

a ball joint separator is for popping the ball joint out from the lower control arm. I guarantee you will never remove the actual ball joint from the knuckle using a ball joint separator. what you need is to take the knuckle to a press and press it out.

 

I guess I'm confused as to what the knuckle is exactly. When I look at the diagram, the ball joint and knuckle look like the same thing but the knuckle is 200 dollars vs 60 for the ball joint.

 

Never mind. I figured out the difference. Have you tried removing one with a separator? Because if I was to take the whole knuckle off then I would have to mess the upper ball joints. Which I don't want to do if I don't have to.

 

Your ball joint could still be ok, if just the boot is torn you can just pop the ball-joint from the LCA remove the boot, clean out the old grease, re-pack it and put a new boot onto it. Hopefully the LCA sleeve doesn't come out attached to it, if it does getting it off to replace the boot will be difficult. I'd hit it with PB blaster a few days or a week prior to doing the job and then hit it again with blaster when you're doing the job before trying to pop it out.

Should be ok unless it's popping or something its probably not bad. The boot is only like $5.

I was able to replace my driver's side ball-joint without removing the knuckle here's how I did it...

- Remove wheel, brake caliper and rotor
- Remove spindle nut (axle)
- Remove cotter pin & castle nut
- Flip castle nut upside down and thread it back onto ball-joint
- Use pitman arm puller to pop the ball-joint (I used one like this: )
- Remove sway bar end link from LCA
- Remove the castle nut and slide the knuckle out of the LCA
- Remove knuckle from the axle, pull knuckle towards you and swing it out of the way
- Remove the ring from inside of the knuckle (by wheel bearing)
- Use an impact socket and big hammer and pound the old ball-joint out of the knuckle from the bottom
- Press in new ball-joint using a ball-joint press and honda ball-joint adapter kit
- Re-assemble everything.

I did my driver's side because I mushroomed the ball-joint end while I was replacing the axle on a previous job. My passenger side boot was torn and I opted to just replace the boot on that end and clean it out/re-pack it with grease. Definitely much easier and cheaper to just replace the boot and re-pack.

Honestly it might be easier after disassembling to that point to just pop the tie rod end and upper ball-joint so you can pound the ball-joint out with it on a bench. It wasn't easy getting it out with the knuckle still in the car and I couldn't fit the rented press on it any way to press it out.

 

Thanks for the help. Im definitely gonna give this a shot.I went and bought a pitman arm puller, the smaller of the two choices, and it didn't fit. Do you think the bigger one will work?

 

This is the one I used:



It has a point on the part that presses against the ball-joint stud to press it out though, I ground that part flat and I also ground down the ends on the jaws to open it up a little bit more.

The first time I used it the point on it ended up boogering up one of my ball-joints and the sleeve in the LCA. The point put all the pressure right over the weakest point on the stud (where the hole is) and compressed it and the other part didn't fit completely over the sleeve in the LCA so it damaged the sleeve a bit.

After I ground the point flat and opened it up it worked fine on my passenger's side. I ended up replacing my driver's side LCA and ball-joint.

Also in my steps you don't actually need to disconnect the FSB end link from the LCA should be able to do the job with it still attached. I was just recalling because I replaced the LCA on one side when I did the ball-joint.

Definitely hit the bottom of the ball-joints with PB blaster a while before trying this job to hopefully get them to dis-lodge from the sleeve so it doesn't come out attached to your ball-joint and don't use impact tools. A breaker bar should do the trick when you're pressing out the ball-joint.

You can also try another method like this:



If you do replace the ball-joint be careful for the sensor that is near the bearing, you don't want the ball-joint to come out and smack it. Also it can be pretty easy to deform that ring on the inside of the wheel bearing and may end up needing to replace it.

 

Thanks again. I am going to go ahead and replace the joints too. Just because I already bought them. Do you think its absolutely necessary to remove the rotor to do this? I only ask because he screw that is holding mine in are a pain to get out and I don't want to strip them.

 

not necessary to remove rotor at all