Ball joint removal - The Fight
 

The dust covers on the steering rod of my 1719AK truck needed replacement - a simple procedure which turned out into one hell of a fight.

The conical shaped pin just couldn't be convinced to exit the socket in the steering rod. Hammering, heavy jack lifting, heating by torch, cursing:taz: - nothing worked.

After 3 mornings of trying :stormy: I had to resort to specialized tools to get the job done - an impression if nothing else works;

Ball joint separator tool for dust cover replacement

With the ball joint separator tool from Kukko it was a 1 minute job....

A trick I was shown many moons ago ,which has NEVER been known to fail in over 30 years -

You use two hammers , one a small sledge and the other is a 2lb or slightly bigger ball pein .

Slacken off the nut most of the way .
Place the large hammer behind the tapered ball joint female part , touching it and apply enoough pressure to hold the hammer in place .
Whack the ball joint "female part " with the smaller hammer directly opposite the large hammer .
You might have to give it several blows ,but the ball joint tapered part will pop out of the tapered female housing .

What happens is the large hammer acts as an anvil and the smaller hammer blows cause the female taper to distort slightly and break the "seal".

This method is extremely useful if you want to dismantle the joint without damaging the rubber cover .

It is obvious from your photo that whacking away willynilly on the arm did not work and in some cases could cause damage to the steering arm .:thumbdown: You simply do not need brute force to separate the parts and you should never beat on components like that .
If it's a fight - you're doing it wrong .

When you refit , apply grease or copper coat to the taper .

Hope this helps .

Hi Dodger,

Thx for the reply & info.

Used this particular technique - what happens is that the 'vice' hammer bounces on the other side on the blow with the smaller hammer. Creates sort of a rhythm. A mechanic from a car workshop came up with this.

Had a look at a nearby tractor (Kubota / John Deere) workshop, there they took out a huge sledgehammer for the reluctant cases. Didn't want that anywhere near my 1719 steering rods!! Plus side for tractors, the ball joints are easily accessible. For a Mercedes 1719 it's not.

The Kukko ball joint puller then showed the frightening amount of force necessary to push out the conical pin. It came out with an explosive snap. With hindsight i really doubt any hammering would have done it. The pin & socket were totally dry, prolly not greased at all when put together again many many years ago.

The Kukko tool is well worth it's price - a workshop session is more expensive, not even added the fuel to get there & away.

Cheers!
Arno