Lowering the Car to a Floor Jack to Remove the Ball Joints on a Car

Part of the Video Series Preparing High Performance Brake Installation

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Remove ball joints by lowering the car to get a floor jack off of it, since removing the spindle lowers the tension of the spring; learn how in this free auto-remodeling video.

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Lowering the Car to a Floor Jack 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. Now Mark has lowered the car so he can get a floor jack under it. When the spindle comes off the car, it releases the tension of the spring for the suspension of the car. So he's got the weight of the lower control arm supported by the floor jacket so that when he loosens up the retaining nuts holding the ball joints in place, it doesn't allow an uncontrolled expansion of the spring. If you do it up in the air and you just beat it apart in the air, you can send parts across the shop. So he's removing the upper ball joint retaining nut. Things won't come apart until he actually gets in there with a big hammer or the pickle fork, knocking them loose. But he's still going to carefully put the floor jack under it to start with. He's got the upper nut loose and out of there. Now he's loosening up the bottom nut and he'll get that out. There's just the two ball joints left holding the spindle to the car.

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