Was changing control arms & ball joints when one of the ball joints gave me an issue. It seems it might had been replaced before and the castle nut was over torqued. Of course I stripped it trying to get it to budge, and now I am trying to figure out how to get it removed. I tried extractor socket but that isn’t working. Tried cutting a notch and hammering with a chisel, that didn’t work. Tried water pump pliers, no luck. Thinking my last options are drill it out or replace the whole knuckle which feels like so much more work at this point. Any ideas?
So you're trying to still remove the castle head nut from the ball joint tapered shaft that is still pushed through the steering knuckle and the nut just spins wildly In the old days some would take a pickle fork or a ball joint fork and try to wedge that in between the underside of the steering knuckle to put tension on the ball and its socket to keep it from spinning and then you use a half inch electric or pneumatic removal tool with the proper socket and blast it off You're not going to be reusing that nut or ball joint again or if push comes to shove you spread it with the pickle fork a little bit If you can't get the nut to turn or do anything pull the pickle fork out or the ball . Then your other resort is to use a nut splitter You should have a pneumatic gun or an electric gun to work that It goes over the nut that you can't get undone castlehead or otherwise righty tighty with the gun it splits the nut sometimes you can bang the nut around so you can get the blade of the nut splitter on the other side without trying to turn the nut splitter run it up again split the nut now you've split it the nut in half You should be able to knock it off with a punch and the small ball peen hammer now smack on the eye with your dead blow hammer and the tapered shaft should drop out and hit the ground now you need to count the threads to the edge of the nut on the ball joint loosen the nut remove the ball joint put the nut to the right place screw on the new ball joint adjust the nut so it's tight and aimed up your alignment and toe should remain extremely close because nothing is hardly moved and you've counted the thread usually when I do this my alignment guy tells me after he puts it on the rack that he doesn't even need to adjust the toe because it's perfect It's where he left it last time.
Lots of ideas here: https://knowhow.napaonline.com/11-tricks-for-removing-rounded-off-bolts/ How about heat the heck out it first, then try the pliers again, for starters.
Can't you use the same tool to cut the nut in half???? Cut a 2nd groove, then try the chisel again to know 1/2 off, then the other. Or cut the ball joint off....
Don’t think my dremel is an adequate tool to cut through the flanged nut. Not very knowledgeable about other cutting tools, not sure what would be good for a tight space like this. I would upload a picture but I am having an issue with the process
If you cut the ball joint off you've got to cut it right under the nut. You've got to do it carefully so you don't bug her up the aluminum eye hole too much but really that's pretty hard to do.
Actually your Dremel with the heavier twist on cutting wheels the newer type of mount not the one that uses the screw and squeezes the cutting disc the kind that twist on to the new mount they are actually heavy duty You will eat right through that nut on two sides with one wheel on about number eight speed will work very well actually and it's small enough to get right in there Don't worry about putting a line on the aluminum eye or you can get close to where it's going to touch the eye enough where you can get a punch in there and it will split off and then you smack on the eye a few times in the tapered shaft should drop down and you're out of there when you put a new one you anti-seize everything up blast on the nut I don't even use castlehead nut anymore I was able to get a locking nut from somewhere so I grabbed two one for each side.
Thanks I will look into those, I dont use the dremel for big projects so I am didnt think that it was more heavy duty mounts.
I use a Milwaukee 12 volt Dremel tool I used to have the Dremel brand but it's lost in the mix somewhere. I bought the cutting wheels in the Dremel section of Lowe's You can buy the wheels and just the mount The new mount and the wheels have a funny hole in the middle of a menu drop the wheel on the mount push down and twist there's no more screw those wheels are kind of heavy like the DeWalt wheels on the grinding wheel cut off wheel aisle of the store they're just small so they can fit and get the in between the fence part of the nut and it should wing it right off for you very quickly.
