Tips/tricks for separating lower ball joint 2018 Tahoe PPV?

Tonyv__ said:

If I was in your shoes, I’d use a pickle fork and a BFH. They have never let me down, even with PA rust. If you ruin the boot, rent a C clamp press and press a new ball joint in.

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IIRC, the BJs are non-replaceable. They look welded into the LCAs to me, and while I haven't specifically looked, I haven't seen a separate listing for just the BJs. But if that's an option, I'll cut the ones on the current LCA and replace with the spindle.

CrashTestDummy said:

IIRC, the BJs are non-replaceable. They look welded into the LCAs to me, and while I haven't specifically looked, I haven't seen a separate listing for just the BJs. But if that's an option, I'll cut the ones on the current LCA and replace with the spindle.

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I think its the other way around. bottoms are serviceable and the tops are not. however, rock auto list upper and lowers available for sale.

Weird. As I said, they both look welded on to me.

BUT, we had success!! While I have the $200 Kent-Moore J-43631 tool on order (should be here Friday), I found a cheap Chinesium ($40) one that we could get in one day from the Jeff Bezos. Reviews were all 1's or 5's, and I figured even though I had the other one on its way, I really wanted to get this job done.

The cheap tool arrived this afternoon, just as we were finishing up cleaning our weapons from this morning's range trip. Since we still had some daylight and a few hours before dinner, we ran out to see if we could have any success. I cranked it on there pretty tight, but even after smacking the knuckle with the 2# hammer, nothing.... until ->BANG!<- the knuckle broke loose! Went over to the other side, cranked down on it again, and while I was doing something else, BANG! again.

We left it at that, since my gimp shoulder is kind of sore from the range trip. The work in the rear should be relatively trivial, so we hope to button it all up tomorrow.

And... done!! Took MUCH longer than anticipated, but that seems to happen with us these days. Took a few iterations trimming the LBJ stud before we got clearance, Clarence ( ) but we finally got it all together. Rides fine, and looks better. We even put new wiper blades on it, since the ones it had were chattering across the windshield.

One thing to note, it's not said in the install directions, but you'll want to insert the top hub bolt in the new spindle BEFORE you install it. Once the upper ball joint nut is in place, there's zero room to slide that bolt into place. That was yet another delay in the install. Now I know.

Thanks for all the help and tips. They really helped!! Still waiting for the Kent-Moore tool, but the Chinese one did the job this time.



Pardon the dirt. It doesn't sit still long, and it's now cold outside. We'll probably throw the standard Tahoe front spoiler on it soon. Should help mileage a bit.

wjburken said:

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Yeah, the lower BJ is replaceable, but you're hammering the chiseled-over edges with a hammer and chisel, and still haven't gotten to the pressing it off bit yet. IMHO, I'd just replace the whole dang thing, and I really hate just replacing units (throwing out the front wheel hub on our '12 Caprice, not being able to rebuild it really brought me some angst).