98 a4 2.8 30v Q sport pkg 233K.

Hi there. I changed a tie rod today. It was so easy I started drinking beer. But, I still had the front lower control arm bushing to replace, so I got started on that. For the love of God I cannot get the ball joint end out of the wheel bearing housing. I know it's tapered and can be difficult, but I really don't know what else to do. Note: I do not have that really nifty tool that I've seen pics of that spreads this thing. I have it soaking in penetrant now ... but hoping for some tips. Do I need to get the special tool; or do you have a better way???? Thanks.

 

I didnt know it was possible to not drink beer while working on a car.

either way, what you need to do is take your ball peen hammer and pound the **** out of the steering knuckle where the tapered shaft seats. it would be even better if you had an air hammer. if you got a buddy around, grab a big *** pry bar and have him pry down (or up depending on which control arm you are talking about) on the control arm while you pound the crap out of the steering knuckle. it will pop loose eventually

oh yeah, forgot to mention. torch it red hot first.



JUST KIDDING!!! you shouldnt under any circumstances torch any ball joint. the grease inside starts to expand and the joint will pop apart eventually under enormous pressure, sending it across the room at mach speed. no joke. it would probably kill someone if it hit them right.

 

+1 air hammer..

-1 torch.. - cause that's the only problem with that recommendation :P

 

Well I put a mapp gas torch on the thing to see if that would help. The cv boot caught on fire ...

Ok, that's a lie. I did however use a big *** pry bar. A 6 foot digging bar which i was able to slip between the rear and front control bars. I then put massive amounts of upward pressure on the front arm (the one I was working on) and put blocks under it to hold it there. I then proceeded to beat the everloving **** out of it with the aforementioned ball pein hammer. Well, it worked. So thank you redline380 for the advice. Seriously.
Do you think the German engineers who designed the B5 would approve?

 

 

they wouldnt approve because they wouldn't believe that failure of a balljoint they designed is possible

but no problem for the help. its what i am here for. at least you learned something and next time you will be able to do it again

 

This.

 

I find it severely hurts my productivity. It took my friend and I 2 weeks to replace a set of headgaskets because we had too many beers while working on the car.

Have a beer, start working on car... make a little progress, have another beer as a reward... work on the car a little more, get stuck on something small... have a beer while thinking about... now we really cant figure it out, so have another beer while thinking.... start throwing wrenches at the car... have another beer and say, f*ck it, let's go watch stupid youtube videos. Then we accidentally found ourselves at a bar for the rest of the day. We repeated this cycle every day for the next two weeks until the car magically ran again.