So it's not been a good day for me. Pulled my LCA to replace my the bushings. First I see that my ball joint is cut and it's nice and greasy down there. Count to ten... Figured one thing at a time and decided to go ahead with the bushings. Get it out, find that my press doesn't fit around the outside of the bushing. Count to ten. Think screw it, not going to ruin my day, I'll just put it back together and figure out how to replace the ball joint do it all another weekend. Put everything back together, slide the ball joint back into the hole, start to ratchet it back down. And just keep on ratcheting.... So, take a look, see that the nut is on about half an inch and is catching on a bad thread. When it hits that resistance, the entire bolt just starts to spin. Count to twenty! I want to scream. I don't know how I damaged it. But now I am dead in the water. I can't put my car back together. I have a tap and die kit and was hoping I could finagle a work around. Nope. So, is my only hope to pull the ball joint? Haven't started looking at that yet. Looks like I'll have to pull the wheel hub assembly to get to it? FML... Anyone have any ideas? Mainly just here to vent because I'm pretty sure replacing is my only option... Happy Saturday everybody!!!

 

When I did this job, I unscrewed nuts for upper and lower balljoints and pull spindle out. And then you will see LCA should be hanging free.

 

I had a similar issue once. If you have to replace the ball joint why not just unscrew it and remove the knuckle to replace the ball joint?
When this happened to me the ball joint was fine. I wound up using a dremel to carefully clean up the threads