Whew! That was a bit of messing around, but I'm happy to report that I finally found a day to install new upper and lower hub ball joints on my Range Rover last weekend. I purchased my 2000 4.0 over a year ago and knew it needed ball joints then, but it took me this long to get around to actually doing the job (105,000 miles on it now). Originally, I had a bit of a death wobble which got better when I replaced all the usual suspects; panhard bushings, front and rear track rods, new tires, etc. Even though the wobble went away, the front end never felt quite solid as it should to me, especially over rough sections of road.
Here are highlights of my long day:
1. The brake rotors seemed to be frozen on to the hubs for reasons unknown. The liberal use of penetrating oil and a 5 pound hammer finally helped eased those off after much pounding. They were so banged up by the time I got them off I had to get them turned. I didn't think about this ahead of time, but that's a great time to get this done.
2. The hubs and axles were extremely easy to pull out after removing the four bolts on the back of the hub housing.
3. I spent the bulk of my time trying to remove the swivel hubs. This consisted of mostly me standing around wondering why anyone would design something in this way. I was beginning to think I was doing something wrong. In the end, a pickle fork on the end of a pneumatic gun between the ball joint and the hub was more effective than simple beating, but was still a struggle.
4. To remove the ball joints, I rented the universal ball joint tool from my local Autozone that all the major auto chain places seem to have (as long as you bring it back in 90 days, it's free, how can you beat that?). The tool itself was great (very heavy duty, more than adequate for this job) but it only comes with three adaptors. I read the previous write ups and saw the recommended adaptor kit that runs about $75, but I just could not get over paying that much for a set of adaptors that I might not need again for years. I probably should have just ponied up and purchased the kit, but I ended up buying a giant socket for $24 to use on removing the bottom ball joint and grinding down another old Whitworth socket I found to fit the bottom of the clamp tool that I rented. This in combination with a couple old bearing races laying around did the trick of getting the old upper and lowers out and new ones back in. I put a lot of penetrating oil on everything over many hours, I really feel like this helped. Once I had the adaptors and the clamp figured out for each ball joint, it was very straight forward. It did take some muscle to move them out and back in, but no drama and sweating involved as removing the swivel hubs.
I spent about $120 on four new ball joints. For the tools, I had to rent the free ball joint tool, buy a giant socket to use as as an adaptor for the bottom ball joint to come out and borrow a friends compressor and air gun/pickle fork. I also had to buy a 19mm 12 point socket for $5 to remove the brake calipers. Everything else was common garage tools that I had. Including a can of PB Blaster penetrating oil, it was all under $150, which I consider a fairly inexpensive repair considering what a good shop or (gasp) what the dealer would charge for this, which is probably not something I want to know anyway.
The front end is super tight now and feels like I imagined it always should be, so I'm a happy camper. Thanks to everyone for their previous posts on the ball joints, that really helped get me motivated to do the job.
Here are highlights of my long day:
1. The brake rotors seemed to be frozen on to the hubs for reasons unknown. The liberal use of penetrating oil and a 5 pound hammer finally helped eased those off after much pounding. They were so banged up by the time I got them off I had to get them turned. I didn't think about this ahead of time, but that's a great time to get this done.
2. The hubs and axles were extremely easy to pull out after removing the four bolts on the back of the hub housing.
3. I spent the bulk of my time trying to remove the swivel hubs. This consisted of mostly me standing around wondering why anyone would design something in this way. I was beginning to think I was doing something wrong. In the end, a pickle fork on the end of a pneumatic gun between the ball joint and the hub was more effective than simple beating, but was still a struggle.
4. To remove the ball joints, I rented the universal ball joint tool from my local Autozone that all the major auto chain places seem to have (as long as you bring it back in 90 days, it's free, how can you beat that?). The tool itself was great (very heavy duty, more than adequate for this job) but it only comes with three adaptors. I read the previous write ups and saw the recommended adaptor kit that runs about $75, but I just could not get over paying that much for a set of adaptors that I might not need again for years. I probably should have just ponied up and purchased the kit, but I ended up buying a giant socket for $24 to use on removing the bottom ball joint and grinding down another old Whitworth socket I found to fit the bottom of the clamp tool that I rented. This in combination with a couple old bearing races laying around did the trick of getting the old upper and lowers out and new ones back in. I put a lot of penetrating oil on everything over many hours, I really feel like this helped. Once I had the adaptors and the clamp figured out for each ball joint, it was very straight forward. It did take some muscle to move them out and back in, but no drama and sweating involved as removing the swivel hubs.
I spent about $120 on four new ball joints. For the tools, I had to rent the free ball joint tool, buy a giant socket to use as as an adaptor for the bottom ball joint to come out and borrow a friends compressor and air gun/pickle fork. I also had to buy a 19mm 12 point socket for $5 to remove the brake calipers. Everything else was common garage tools that I had. Including a can of PB Blaster penetrating oil, it was all under $150, which I consider a fairly inexpensive repair considering what a good shop or (gasp) what the dealer would charge for this, which is probably not something I want to know anyway.
The front end is super tight now and feels like I imagined it always should be, so I'm a happy camper. Thanks to everyone for their previous posts on the ball joints, that really helped get me motivated to do the job.
