Balljoint Seperation

[brent]

Hello all

Am new to this forum and have only had the cruiser for about a month now but am in the middle of a front end rebuild with new grease and seals etc, have everything apart but can't for the life of me get the tie rod end out, tried to find a small puller but have had no such luck, picked up a fork yesterday from sears and you guessed it messed up the tie rod end so now it really needs to come out, any idea on places to find one of these pullers, I tried a larger one I use for gears but didn't have luck either. Any advice would be greatly apprecited.

Brent

 

[alia176]

Another long shot is to use a pneumatic hammer on the tip of the tie rod joint bolt. Sometimes this works. Also, supposedly Marlin Crwlers can sell us just the tie rod end boots to replace the torn ones.

 

[brent]

No air hammer here, am one year out of college and my tools are pretty limited, will check out the site for the tie rod ends, Dan also said he might have some in stock??? Am headed down to Autozone to see what they rent for puller and see if soemthing will work, need that damn thing apart........ah the fun of repairs, still I would rather have problems and do it myself then pay someone..........thanks for the help

Brent

 

[alia176]

I've tried Pitman arm pullers but they don't work. Try a smaller version of the Pitman arm puller and that might do the trick. Put plenty of antiseize on the taper for next time!

Good luck.

Ali

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Take your BFH(Big Fawkin Hammer) and wack the side of the hole(do NOT hit the TRE itself, but rather the side of the knuckle parrallel to the axis of the hole, i.e. on the end of the knuckle. It will take all of 3-4 good wacks and the thing will pop free. I had tried EVERYTHING to get mine off and I finally gave up and called a mechanic friend and he told me to do the above and it worked like a charm. I'm sure someone will say that this is not the proper method, but I couldn't get anything else to work, and this did. Good luck!



Ary

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Here, I made a little diagram. Hit where the black arrow is pointing, and NOT where the red arrows are pointing.

 

[brent]

hey thanks guys, got it off..........on to more cleaning and such, thanks for the pic

brent

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

How did you get it off?

 

[stayalert]

two NQBFH's (not quite BFH) used on opposing sides also are effective...It becomes sort of a walk and chew gum kind of thing unless you're ambidextrious (is that how you spell that word?) ....but it works.

 

[brent]

I went and got a actual tie rod puller, I thought I'd try it before I hit it some more, I had previously hit it with a hammer from about every angle....twice, the puller worked like a champ, was 20 blums, or you can just rent it and give it back, think for 20 I'll keep it around, think I'm going to just order a new boot for now and switch them out later down the road when its now X-mas time, think my account is going to be pretty low after the holiday season and all...........thanks again for all the help and the pic, back to the garage.......

Brent

 

[alaskacruiser]

hey brent- welcome to the forum. Where in AK are you from? Fairbanks here.