It's been a long time since I've been on the forum. But in February I moved out of the parents house and nearly 750 miles away to Indiana. The truck made it loaded with 1000 lbs of motorcycles, of course within a week of being here the alternator died and I ended up changing it in the parking lot of advance auto. My dad later said that he could see the headlights cyclically dimming, I guess there were signs I just never noticed them and the truck ran so much better with the new alternator.

Fast forward to last week the landlord threatened to tow my truck which was no longer registered as it was registered in NY and my mom and sister took the plates home when they brought my car down in May. The truck had been sitting and of course would crank but not start, I chased the wiring and repaired yet another splice, the ASD wasn't getting 12v from the key. Also it appears the boot was ripped on the drivers side caliper so it doesn't really want to release either.

I then decided to see if I could find the cause of the tire wearing wickedly on the outside. Well, the upper ball joint needs replacing and I cant seem to get the darn thing to turn out of the arm. Granted I no longer have access to all the tools I used to. Armed with a $20 propane torch I managed to get the castle nut off which of course the cotter pin didn't want to come out and just broke.

I have rented the ball joint service kit from advance and with a 1/2 breaker bar I can't get it to budge, of course it's hard to hammer and pull at the same time by yourself. I've read a post on here about a 1,000 ftlb impact being used to get it out!? I'm going to see if I can find somewhere to borrow a 3/4 or I could get the 1 in breaker bar from work and find an adapter.
I'm thinking I'll just shoot it with pb blaster all week and give it a go again and if it won't budge I'll find a shop to do it...poor suckers

If I had the money I would do a complete overhaul of the front end because all the bushings have definitely seen better days

The other question I have is that I went and bought the ball joint from NAPA and even though their website has it listed as being a thread in type the actual ball joint is a press in type. I'm guessing the part changed and they didn't change the part number but I was curious if anyone has pressed out the thread in one and pressed another in? I doubt it would really be safe as there's not much to press into really.

 

You got the wrong ball joint, maybe a lower? The replacement upper is a thread in too. I got mine through rock auto.
It was a b1tch removing them. I used a pipe wrench with about 4' of pipe for leverage to get the thing to budge, and then it was pretty tight most of the way out.

 

I have no idea what it is but the part number matches what is given on their website that fits the application. Although the description on the website doesn't match the actual part.


My assumption is they changed the ball joint to fit some other application and didn't realize that these old Dakota's are screw in. Who knows, someone messed up somewhere though.


I've got the correct socket and I'll be borrowing a 3/4 breaker bar from work. Plan B is a piece of pipe from the local hardware store I can return when I'm done

 

Okay yeah. I replaced the ball joints on my '93. I could not unthread them. I tried everything. A couple weeks of penetrating oil, heat, crescent wrench, Big pipe wrench with pipe on it, removing the control arm and putting the ball joint flats onto a vice and using the control arm itself for leverage...NOTHING worked.

Finally I removed the bushings and cross bar (cause I was replacing bushings anyways), put the control arm upside down with the ball joint flats clamped in a 6" vice and put a big pry bar through the cross bar holes. I put as much force as I dared on the pry bar. No good. Was afraid I'd bend the control arm.

I ended up pressing the ball joint out with a normal ball joint press and threading in the new one. It was mostly the threads on the ball joint that were damaged; the control arm threads seemed okay, and the new joints threaded in just fine and I was able to torque them to "okay, that's tight ft.lbs." To be safe I put 4 tack welds on each ball joint because I've heard stories of these ball joints popping out.

Do everything you can to unthread that joint...but if you just can't get it, you might try pressing it out. I was really hesitant to do it because I hate doing **** wrong, but I'd exhausted all my options.

 

Believe it or not the drivers side came out with an impact after I used PB blaster on it twice a day for a week.


The passenger side I didn't think to PB blast...I heated it probably half a dozen times. Then yesterday I got creative, cooled it using ice and then heated it up a couple times. After the impact wouldn't budge it I got the 3/4 ratchet I borrowed from work out and the hammer, braced against the frame pulling with one hand and hammering with the other. I then put all my force on the ratchet and I heard it creak!!


Bad news is I couldn't tighten either of them down very much so, there's a guy in my apartment complex that has a welder, tack them in and I'll be all set. After that my truck should be all set for winter, which is still a ways out yet.


I doubt I would've been able to even get the a arm off as those threads looked pretty rusty, I might feel bad for the person who's going to have to loosen them if they have to change alignment. But oh well, not my problem!!

 

Truth about the a arm...I have no idea what size the heads on the crossbar mounting bolts were originally, they were so rotted. I hammered a variety of sockets onto them, used an impact with all my weight on it, and somehow I was able to turn them out...I was amazed.

Good that you got it all set!!!