works fine for me. Are you on dial up? try copying the photo location and pasting it into the url and see if that works for you.

 

you are busted

 

i am actually in the middle of replacing both front upper and lower ball joints and all the shocks..rivets are pain in my butt to get them out..i will post the results when i am done.thanks for the info guys

 

I replaced all 4 on my wifes dakota. Here's what worked well for me from the help of this board.
1. take a 4" grinder with a cutting wheel and cut an "X" pattern on the top of the rivit.
2. then take a cold chisel or an air chisel and knock off the top of the rivet. Much easier since it's in 4 sections from the cutting wheel.
3. drill out. start with a smaller bit then size it

really not all that bad.
hope it helps

 

I used a thick metal grinding wheel that is cupped on a Black and Decker Professional 9" heavy duty grinder. This thing has so much torque, that if you got twisted up in it somehow, it would tear your arm off. It's probably 40-50 years old now. It did not take more than a handful of seconds each to take the rivets down to the control arm. I had to be careful to not gouge the control arm with it.

After grinding the rivet heads off with a thick metal grinding wheel, the rivets did not want to come out for me either, even after a hit with a big hammer. I gound the rivet heads off of the bottom side of the contro arm, since that went faster than I assumed drilling that distance would take. I drilled through each rivet with a single small bit (it was about 1/4 the diameter of the rivet itself). For good measure, I warmed up the rivets with a propane torch, and doused them with cold water. I warmed up the rivets again, just hot enough that I could melt candle wax over them. Some of the wax will wick down between the rivet and the control arm. One hard hit with the hammer and chisel broke the rivets loose, and a couple more hits sent the rivets out the back of the control arm. Just don't get the control arm cherry red or you will soften the steel and possibly cause a crack later on. Same with being careful with the chisel that you not make a notch in the holes that might propagate a crack later on.

 

Hello
Does anyone know the torque for the top and bottom bolts my new ball joints don’t say at all.
I also see in the start how to on the ball joints he uses washers on the ball joint bolts, my new ball joints don’t have them should I get me some and I’m guessing I need grade 8 washers for the grade 8 bolt’s.
Thanks

 

When I did mine I just tightened them as tight as I could by hand. I did not use a torque wrench on them. I bought washers, nuts and bolts at Home Depot.

Jimmy

 

Your new ball joints didn’t come with the bolts nuts and such how strange.
I hope you got grade 8 bolts and nuts if not you may be in for a crash in the future you must use grade 8 hardware in such a critical, component as suspension or metric grade 12.9 the ball joints I just purchased had the metric grade 12.9 bolts and nuts included.
If you didn’t get the high strength bolts and nuts they will snap off soon so beware.

 

My great 1998 Dakota truck

 

I’m starting my install of new ball joints and coil springs in my 1998 Truck for now I’m buying the parts this what I have so far Raybestos service grade ball joints they seem to be of good quality pics attached.

Upper Ball Joint



Lower Ball joint



In a few days I will get the coil springs and other parts.


Well I’m replacing my Coil springs they have sagged about one inch as you can see by the stop that is shinny here showing how much my front end bottoms out my coil springs have turned to soft mush.






Old and New coil springs Moog



New top Ball joint



New Bottom ball joint



All ready to put nuckle back on



Everything went smooth rivets PITA YES the new coil springs give me a stronger ride not mushy like the old springs