Jessey Dearing
Member
Recently replaced the upper ball joints on my 91' L300. The upper ball joints are the same part on both sides, I bought mine from Febest on Amazon, part number Mr241623 and they did come with grease point fitting, which I was surprised by. Overall I would say this is a pretty simple task in terms of access to the upper ball joints. Hardest part was getting the ball joint in and out of place
Tools:
* Jack and jack stands
* Needle nose pliers (for cotter pins)
* 24mm shallow depth socket or wrench (for the castle nut on the original ball joint)
* 22mm shallow depth socket or wrench (for the castle nut on the new febest ball joint)
* set of regular sockets for other various bolts
* ball joint separator (I found this somewhat useful, some people don't)
* ball peen hammer, tiny sledge hammer
Steps:
1. Block rear tires, jack up front end and put on jack stands and remove tires (loosen the lug nuts before lifting). Locate the upper ball joint.
2. My upper arm around the ball joint was covered in grime, so much that it barely looked like there were bolts there. Remove the cotter pin from the castle nut (red circle in image below)
3. Loosen the castle nut (24mm) down to end of the threads, but don't remove yet
4. Use the ball joint separator, or hammer to loosen the taper / free the ball joint and knuckle from each other (look up youtube videos on this to see what I mean). Hammer the knuckle above the castle nut, the ball joint separator goes between the ball joint rubber dust cover and the knuckle (just above the read circle below) I found that a combination of hammering the knuckle and hammering the ball joint separator and trying to wedge it free eventually worked. But it gets real messy as the ball joint separator breaks the dust cover and grease starts going everywhere.
5. Once the knuckle and ball joint are loose, remove the top three bolts (12mm - green circle above) and remove the grease point if you have one (10mm wrench) and remove the castle nut the rest of the way
6. After struggling to figure out how to wiggle the ball joint out as suggested in this post, I realized that in the photo of that post, the lower shock absorber bolts (10mm or 12mm - green circles below) and the sway arm link (14mm - red circle) has been disconnected from the lower arm. I undid both, but only partially removed the sway bar link. This is a great time to replace both the shocks and the sway arm link if you have the parts, which I didn't at the time. This lowers the lower arm enough to get the old upper ball joint out (it was still a struggle, but possible).
7. Clean up the area around the ball joint connection. Now wiggle in the new ball joint. I think because I didn't remove the sway bar link completely, it made this much harder. I found that if I put the ball joint into the upper arm as it will be when it's bolted in, then I pivot the lower end of ball joint (where the castle nut will eventually screw onto) out into the knuckle and pushed down on the knuckle while trying to level the ball joint out again, it would sort of lever the knuckle down and the upper part of the ball joint into place of the upper arm. Then straighten it all out to line up the top 12mm holes into the upper arm. It's a bit of a pain.
8. Tighten down the three 12mm bolts on the top of the upper ball joint. Add the grease point (9mm wrench with the febest brand joints)
9. Attach the castle nut, screw it on until you can get the new cotter pin in the hole of the bolt (green arrow), and bend the cotter pin to lock it in place.
10. At some point (either before I fully attached the upper ball joint, or after, not sure if it matters) I used a bottle jack to raise the lower arm enough to reattached the sway arm link and the shock absorbers. The bolt should have 8-10mm sticking out according to the manual.
11. Put your tires back on and lower the Star Wagon.
I need to replace my lower ball joints, but haven't done it because I've read that it's more work I haven't found a decent guide for doing it yet. Probably going to have Eizo at Apex take care of it.
Tools:
* Jack and jack stands
* Needle nose pliers (for cotter pins)
* 24mm shallow depth socket or wrench (for the castle nut on the original ball joint)
* 22mm shallow depth socket or wrench (for the castle nut on the new febest ball joint)
* set of regular sockets for other various bolts
* ball joint separator (I found this somewhat useful, some people don't)
* ball peen hammer, tiny sledge hammer
Steps:
1. Block rear tires, jack up front end and put on jack stands and remove tires (loosen the lug nuts before lifting). Locate the upper ball joint.
2. My upper arm around the ball joint was covered in grime, so much that it barely looked like there were bolts there. Remove the cotter pin from the castle nut (red circle in image below)
3. Loosen the castle nut (24mm) down to end of the threads, but don't remove yet
4. Use the ball joint separator, or hammer to loosen the taper / free the ball joint and knuckle from each other (look up youtube videos on this to see what I mean). Hammer the knuckle above the castle nut, the ball joint separator goes between the ball joint rubber dust cover and the knuckle (just above the read circle below) I found that a combination of hammering the knuckle and hammering the ball joint separator and trying to wedge it free eventually worked. But it gets real messy as the ball joint separator breaks the dust cover and grease starts going everywhere.
5. Once the knuckle and ball joint are loose, remove the top three bolts (12mm - green circle above) and remove the grease point if you have one (10mm wrench) and remove the castle nut the rest of the way
6. After struggling to figure out how to wiggle the ball joint out as suggested in this post, I realized that in the photo of that post, the lower shock absorber bolts (10mm or 12mm - green circles below) and the sway arm link (14mm - red circle) has been disconnected from the lower arm. I undid both, but only partially removed the sway bar link. This is a great time to replace both the shocks and the sway arm link if you have the parts, which I didn't at the time. This lowers the lower arm enough to get the old upper ball joint out (it was still a struggle, but possible).
7. Clean up the area around the ball joint connection. Now wiggle in the new ball joint. I think because I didn't remove the sway bar link completely, it made this much harder. I found that if I put the ball joint into the upper arm as it will be when it's bolted in, then I pivot the lower end of ball joint (where the castle nut will eventually screw onto) out into the knuckle and pushed down on the knuckle while trying to level the ball joint out again, it would sort of lever the knuckle down and the upper part of the ball joint into place of the upper arm. Then straighten it all out to line up the top 12mm holes into the upper arm. It's a bit of a pain.
8. Tighten down the three 12mm bolts on the top of the upper ball joint. Add the grease point (9mm wrench with the febest brand joints)
9. Attach the castle nut, screw it on until you can get the new cotter pin in the hole of the bolt (green arrow), and bend the cotter pin to lock it in place.
10. At some point (either before I fully attached the upper ball joint, or after, not sure if it matters) I used a bottle jack to raise the lower arm enough to reattached the sway arm link and the shock absorbers. The bolt should have 8-10mm sticking out according to the manual.
11. Put your tires back on and lower the Star Wagon.
I need to replace my lower ball joints, but haven't done it because I've read that it's more work I haven't found a decent guide for doing it yet. Probably going to have Eizo at Apex take care of it.