Car is a 1993 850 sedan. Failed PA inspection for a number of reasons (headlight glass chipped, supposedly brakes, and LCA ball joint and outer tie rod ends worn). Shop wanted something ridiculous like $1500 ($500 parts/$1000 labor), which I'm clearly not going to do on a 16 year old car. Got all of the parts and jacked up the car today expecting a 30 minute/ side job. Unfortunately, everything on this car seems to be fused together (only tried driver's side). On the ball joint -- bolts holding to LCA came off easily, and the knuckle bolt holding to the spindle came off easily, but I can't for the life of me get the damn ball joint off the spindle. Tried soaking in penetrating oil, prying with a screwdriver and small prybar, banging, etc., but cannot seem to get this off. Is there some way I'm missing? I really don't want to have to go get a torch, since I'm not so comfortable with me holding a torch that close to things that explode. Then, to make things better, I figured I'd try to move on to the tie rod end, which is roughly the same situation. Can't get the locking nut to loosen onto the tie rod, can't get the nut holding the ball joint to loosen. Any suggestions? I am at this point incredibly frustrated and browsing car classifieds. I'd rather find some way to do it myself, but failing that, I'll take recommendations for a shop in Pittsburgh that will do the work with my parts and at a reasonable rate. Noah
While I haven't worked on something as new as an 850, ball joints usually have a nub on the tapered shaft beyond the threads that you can grip with some vice grips and twist back and forth a bit, then the shaft pops right out. They also make a puller tool to press it out.
