Secret to pitman arm removal

[caladin]

I used that same OTC bell shaped puller Spike Strip reccomended, after breaking 3-4 other pullers and it worked a treat. Still whacked sides of the pitman arm with a hammer a few times as a tightened it down.

 

[haryv]

I have soaked the pitman arm on my 88' FJ62 for weeks and have blown through two pitman arm pullers and she hasn't budged a bit.

How the heck do you remove this thing ? Whats the secret?

take a sledgehammer and whack at the part of unit that's wrapped around steering knuckle. the shock should break it loose

 

[Hold my beer]

1) Get the puller snug on the arm
2) Hit down on the arm from above with a piece of pipe & hammer
3) Re-tighten the puller
4) Repeat
5) Profit

just wanted back this method - rented a puller from Oreilly’s and saw that it had already been over-torqued by a previous user. Ended up buying a new one from them and it worked fine using the method above I just used a 1# hammer, striking ~15x at the spline and ~15x downward atop the pitman, tighten puller, repeat. Came off in a couple rounds.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

Just another plug for the Snap-On CJ119B.

CJ119B on the box (removed long ago from my BJ60 for a full, body-off restoration), 22 mm socket, borrowed impact gun, LFH (I don't own a BFH).

After several rounds of impct gun and hammer, the arm relented and jumped back in a puff of rust dust. I'd wound the nut a few milimetres away from the Pitman arm to ensure that the threads would not be damaged (learned from experience on my Hilux steering box). You can see the WD-40 penetrant has done no penetrating! I'll have to try the acetone + PAS fluid, though I'm not sure if I can get acetone here.

Quite a bit of rust on the splines keeping the Pitman arm on. Usually the exposed part of a shaft (in very general terms) gets rusty and the engaged part stays clean - not so on this one...

I could then hammer out the stubborn ball joing from a non-genuine drag-link end.

These Pitman arms are no longer produced (I don't even see after-marlet versions), so good to avoid cutting them off if they are undamaged.

Thanks all for sharing experiences.

EO

 

[Spike Strip]

Doesn't need to be acetone; any petrol solvent with transmission fluid works well. Even diesel in a pinch.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

Doesn't need to be acetone; any petrol solvent with transmission fluid works well. Even diesel in a pinch.

Toluene/xylene and ATF then

 

[Spike Strip]

Toluene/xylene and ATF then

Careful with those, extremely toxic. Only allowed to open those solvents at work in a Bio-hood. They're used as drying agents for tissue prep.

I use kerosene as it's less flammable and dangerous, but boy does it hit you with a lingering stink.

Moot, anyway. You got it off with the Master-puller!

 

[caladin]

I've had pretty good luck with the Kroil with silicone added , Sili-kroil, it performed really well in some tests on you tube so I gave it a shot.

It smells even stranger than wd40, but it works better. So fair trade.

 

[Spike Strip]

Kroil is great stuff, but the price has gone through the roof!

Even the 8oz non-aerosol squirt can is $20

Amazon product ASIN B005ESIHZI