How to Remove the Ball Joints on a Car

Part of the Video Series Preparing High Performance Brake Installation

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Remove the sway bar to get to take off the upper ball joints and lower ball joints, removing the cotter pin and castellated nut; learn how in this free auto-remodeling video.

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Video Transcript

How to Remove the Ball Joints on a Car
Hi, I'm Doug. I work with 20 great guys in St. Louis at Doug Jenkins Custom Hot Rods and we're going to do some work for you today on Expert Village. The next thing Mark's going to take apart is where the sway bar attaches to the control arm so he can get to this nut for the upper ball joint. The sway bar ties the left and front wheels to each other and it's an anti roll piece. It keeps the car handling better and riding better and since the car is so old, there's supposed to be rubber bushings in here. But those suckers are long gone, victims to age. So Mark's going to grab the right tools here to get that apart and so he can gain access to that nut. In this clip we're going to be removing the ball joints, upper and lower. Like the other important pieces here we've taken off, this has a castellated nut and it has a cotter paint in it. It's hard to get out. So Mark will struggle with that and get that out. You can't just force these out. I'm all for using torches and impact guns and big fancy pullers when it'll save you time and if there was a way to just manhandle these suckers off I'd sure do that. But you just can't. There's not a tool strong enough to break that cotter pin off in place so no matter how old the car is, no matter how rusty the cotter pin is you just have to struggle your way through it.

About the Expert

Expert: Doug bought his first car (not a working car) by 14. He fixed and sold it for a profit. He had bought and fixed 20 more by the time he graduated from high school. Read More