now ive just got a steering kit and control arm bush off ebay for my tp sedan and was wondering how hard it is to do the lower ball joints myself.
im mainly asking cos i thought id break out the good old manual and see how hard it looks but it wont tell u how to take them out. because it states that u should remove the control arm and take it to a suspenion specialist whom has the right specialized tools.
so has anyone done it themself and is it something a mechanical minded person can do .
the bushes looked pretty straight forward to install.

oh in the kits i got 2x lower ball joints 2x outter tie rod ends

4x nolothane control arm bushes and lithium grease (bad spelling)
(2 of them larger for the clamp and 2 smaller for the through bolt)
do the ball joints need to be pressed in and out or can i use a drift to take out the old ones and maybe use a g-clamp or soft jawed vice to press in the new??


cheers for that. if im able to do the job , id rather do it myself then go to the mech , there a last resort for me. i rang about 10 mechs to see what the damage would be to put in the lower ball joints and bushes and the lowest qoute was $250 if it all went smooth. so if i can save that by doing it myself id rather do that. ill give it a try .

arrrrrrhhhhh:rant: so ive gone to do the bushes and ball joints. now do u think i could get the ball joint off.
ive been trying for the last 1 1/2 hours. and yes i did tap the steering knuckle and each side of the eye with a dift on the other side. also soaked it in degreser and w-d 40 but to my frustation no luck. bloody magna just wants to fight me all the way (dont get me wrong still luv it). so frustrating, the bushes will be a piece cake , time for a coffee then ill give her another go.

also the big bush just slides in but how do u get the smaller bush at the front out???
if u hit it enough does the bush come out or do u need to press it out plz help

the larger mount you said was no trouble


yea the big ones easy as. u just undo the 2 smaller nuts and then the 2 larger bolts that hold the clamp around the big bush, then it drops and u just twist of the old , then clean the control arm part. then u just grease up the nolothane bush with ur lithium grease and push it on or tap it with a bit of wood. then do up the bolts and nuts. pretty easy compaired to the other bush which is like set in the control arm.

balljoints dont come off our control arms... just go to a wreckers and get a control arm with a good balljoint. thats what i ended up doing with one of mine, and then just degreasing both joints (loads of sand and crap in there), and then packing them with new grease with some new boots.

as for the bushes... the big one was easy, but the small one was a ***** when i did it... cant be bothered explaining the specifics but the small one involved me having to somehow get out the metal spacer that is pressed in without a press... wasn't hard, just a pain in the ***.

well i got the mechanic to do the ball joint, cos then if he damaged the arm he'd have to replace it. i did the bushes myself but. but the problem with the control arm (i knew there would be) was that the old ball joint had worn the arm slightly so when the circlip was removed the ball joint fell out ( so it didn't need to be pressed), when they put the new one in and the circlip they then laid down a few welds to make sure it wont come out or rattle. so the next time they need to be chaged it looks like ill be replaing the control arms.
oh also BX7 when u did ur bushes did it throw ur wheel alingment out by a lot?
mine was fine before hand and now when going straight at 60 the tyres squeel so im gonna have to get that done asap , just wanted to know if that was normal cos i thought the replacment poly bushes had the same geometry:nuts:

now since getting the magna back from the mechanics i hadn't driven it cos the girlfriend picked it up and parked it in our driveway , then her boss went overseas that day and left his car with us . so we've been using his car insted , reason being needing a wheel alingment after putting in the ball joints and bushes. anyway i jumped in the tp on the weekend to move her and when i turn the wheel i get a big bad metal clunks sound. oh **** i thought thats all i need seeing as it suposed to be better with the new parts not worst. so i jacked it up and to check everything was tight , which it was except for the ball joints , so i tightened them up then put it all back and gave it a second try but the noise was still there. so this time i lifted the bonnet and jumed back in started the car and went lock to lock a few times and noticed when this noise happened u could see the plate on top of the strut tower shake. and in stead of turning with the wheel soomthly ( the round palte on top of the syrut tower) it would stay still for a sec then the noise would happen and it would turn quick. so i then stuck my head under the strut tower and the spring wasn't seated in the strut properly , like it was overlapping a little of the edge. checked the other side and it was too. so jacked it up again took out the suspenion and put it back the way it should be,
did this too both sides , lowered it back down and tryed again but the same thing happened , spring popped over the edge of the strut :rant: now im lost , i didnt think the new bushes would throw things out this much and now im wondering it a wheel alingment will fix this or is there somthing else?

oh and i also noticed the control arms had a few added dents free of charge. I know they weren't there before going to the mechanic's because the day before i had it all apart and i degreased everything and gave it all a good cleand and inspection for any rust cracks , damage and so forth (somthing i do to any mech part that needs attention when going to a mechanics, so if i get it back not right i know cos i cleaned it the day before and saw the exeact condition i gave it to them in.) now the dents aren't huge or have any affect on the shape of the control arm, but i clearly remember the underside to be flat smooth and clean.
this is why im not keen on mechanics cos i always seem to get it back worst and a hole in the pocket to boot. anyways enough of my rant for today.

well the struts are only 3 months old same with the bump stop kit. now it's only happened since the mechanic worked on it. so im not taking it back to himagain, instead ive got it booked into a steering and suspenion specialist on thursday so hopfully after taking it there should be all fixed. just one of those frustrating weeks.

springs need to be taken out of the struts and reseated... happened to one of mine when i put in new shockers, happened to one of my mates who has a third gen after we put in super lows.

i need to get a new control arm for my passenger side... i bent it today :D oh and my transmission fluid is burnt to the max, quite and interesting car to drive really... might do that this weekend if i can get a filter and gasket.

so far the tally for this car:

control arm - e-braking around a corner and hitting a pothole
2 x CVs joints - doing burnouts
torque convertor - macdonalds trays under the back wheels :D and burnouts

and much more... lesson to be learnt, doing stupid **** in your car is fun, if you like working on your car :P

like i stated in the earlyer post , i did take out both sides and disasembled then reasembaled the strut and spring (reseated) but it still popped out the spring when turning and thats when the car parked not even moving. i only have to turn the wheel one full turn either way and clunk it pops out like a tic take. fulcrum steering and suspenion specialists are taking care of it for me. there doing a 4 wheel camber/castor toe in or out adjustment, then there gonna find out why its spitting out the spring , let me know why then correct it. these guy seem to know what there doing cos they do alot of custom off road racing stuff and most of what they do is by computer. they have this table u drive the car up on and the computer tells u if any of the suspenion is out pretty cool actually.