How to Remove the Lower Snap Ring on Trucks

Video Transcript

Hi my name is Nate McCullough on behalf of Expert Village. In the following clips we're going to talk about the correct procedure for replacing your upper and lower ball joints on a two wheel drive full size vehicle. In this clip we're going to talk about removal of the retaining snap ring and setting up of our ball joint press. Now off camera we did a little bit of extra work which you guys at home won't necessarily need to do. We moved our brake rotor and a dust shield just to get it out of the way so you guys can get a really clear view of what we're doing over here. This is a snap ring, you can see the two holes right here and they make a million and one different tools for the removal of these. I prefer just a pair of needle nose pliers. They work just fine and they're a lot cheaper then a set of snap ring pliers and they fit all of them. So I don't have to buy a specific plier for every different snap ring. This snap ring is a spring, it actually squeezes down tight in a groove on the ball joint. Any time your dealing with a spring loaded device it's a good idea to put on your safety glasses which I'll do right now. I'm going to take the points of my needle nose pliers, insert them down inside the holes on the snap ring and open it up. Right there, that's the proper way to remove the snap ring. Your new ball joint kit will come with a replacement snap ring it's ok to go ahead and discard it. What I have here is a ball joint press. It's not necessary for you to purchase one and keep it forever and ever. Odds are you will only use one set of ball joints for life of your vehicle. It comes with various couplers and adapters. You can go to your local parts store and get it on the loaner tool program. You'll pay the full purchase price, use the tool and bring it back and they will give you your money back. The first thing that you have to determine is which direction your ball joint is going to press to. That would be indicated to you by what side the snap ring is on. The snap ring is on the top of this particular vehicle, which is going to indicate that the ball joint is going to push downwards. That is the side that we're going to want to set our driving screw up on. The first thing your going to do is take a driving cup and set it on the top of the ball joint. This piece here swivels so you can apply a large amount of force by screwing it and it won't bind up. The next thing you need to set up is your receiver cup, as you can see, as you can see the receiver cup has a hole in it. That's so the ball joint stud can be pushed through it. The ball joint will actually pop into this cup when we're all done. What I'm going to do is slip this on to the ball joint surface and slide my press into position. I'm going to go ahead and run it down hand tight. This is going to vary depending on if the ball joint is pressed upwards or downwards and like I said it will be indicated to you by the side the snap ring is on. Your always going to want to drive to the snap ring , if the snap rings on the bottom, this would be identical but switched over one hundred and eighty degrees. That's the proper way to remove your snap ring and set up your ball joint press.

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