New member... I have a 2WD Dakota V6 and I've been wanting to change the upper ball joints. Has anybody on here done this, and what tools did you use and if it was easy. My truck is up and has the tires off. I have the codder pin out and the castle nut, now what?

 

iirc the upper ball joints have to be turned out. they are threaded in. so you have to buy a special socket for them. just soak them with penetrating fluid and put the socket on them and a johnson bar and try to get it loose. if not then you will have to heat them up with torches then try and get them loose.

thats what I had to do on my 88. I dont know how they have changed through the years.
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KID NEXIUM

 

Thanks. I got a socket and tried it last night. In the chiltons manual they say I need a clamp style tool to remove the stud of the balljoint from its taper on the knuckle. Than I needed a socket to remove the ball joint. I was told taking a hammer and tapping around the stud on the side will loosen it from its taper. I did that, and proceeded to use the socket. I got a 1/2 inch socket wrench and a 3/4 inch adapter for the socket and added a pipe to the handle of the wrench. I reefed on it and no luck. I thought the damn truck was going to fall off the jacks. I tried to use a torch and heat up the threaded area and no luck. Should I get the ball joint itself red hot or does it need to be warm? They are the original BJ's and my truck has 221,000 miles. Its up on Jacks, the tranny is out for rebuild. Its a sharp truck, I'll have to post pics to see what you guys think of it. -Jason

 

when I did mine it almost fell off the jacks too lol

I heated mine up just around the threads till it was red hot. but dont get it too hot. and I had a 5' section of exhaust pipe on the end of my johnson bar and had to keep on wiggling it and prying on it to get it loose.

just try not to through too many tools around when your doing it. cause I still cant find my good ratchet from when I was replacing my rack and pinion.
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ANGELcaliente

 

It is a PITA. I bought the socket and a 3/4" ratchet to go with it. The ratchet came from Harbor Freight, and was a POS. I returned it and will jut get a Craftsman next time. I used a 4' cheater bar on the ratchet. Took a lot of grunt but they eventually came out. Bottom was a PITA too. My clamp kit would not fit around the a-arm. I was doing bushings too so I just pulled the arm off and pounded the old BJ out with a 3-lb sledge.

 

I don't know if they make them for the gen1 dakotas, but I know they make them for the gen2 dakotas. What I am talking about are new upper control arms which utilize ball joints from, iirc, 93-98 chevy 1/2 ton pickups. The lift kit I purchased a while back also used this same system. It makes it extremely easy to replace ball joints in the future, not to mention the upper control arm install isn't that bad. Just a suggestion.

 

I managed to get the uppers replaced. The one side took the longest, but once I figured out the trick, the other side was a peice of cake. This is what I did..

1. Remove codder pin, take off castle nut.
2. Take the right size pickle fork and seperate the balljoint from knuckle.
3. Heat up the top of the balljoint for like 1-2 minutes.
4. Take a impact wrench and BJ socket and put the wrench on the highest setting and try to loosen the BJ. Go forward, and reverse several times. If it doesn't come lose, try step 5.
5. Use a 1/2 inch socket wrench with BJ socket and use a breaker bar on the wrench. Stand up and push and lean into the turn of the wratchet and keep on slamming into the bar with all your strength and the BJ should start loosening.
6. Unthread the BJ and clean out the threads with some cleaner and scotch brite pad to remove rust, dirt etc.
7. I took some oil and lubed the threads. I didn't want to cross thread the BJ after all that work. Thread on the new BJ, and use the wrench to fit it back on flush with the control arm flange.

After doing the lowers, I went ahead and did the lowers too. And I replaced the tie rod ends. I used all MOOG parts. Very happy with the parts and the prices were like 45 for the uppers, 58 for lowers, and 40 something for the tie ends.

The lowers were pressed in. Doing those took longer, but not too difficult. To do the lowers and tie rod ends....this is how you do it.

Raise the vehicle and have it up on all 4 jackstands. Remove the Tie rod end first. Before doing anything, take some Kroil and put a few drops around threads, nuts, and bolts that you might be working with. I removed the shock absorber because the repair manual said to, and they said to take off coil, but I didn't have to. I just left the coil on the truck, but had the shock out anyways. Take the codder pin out and take off castle nut off the tie rod. Take a pickle fork and seperate the rod. This was easy. Now, with it apart.. get 2 wrenchs that fit the adjusting nut and tie rod. I had to use an adjustable wrench for the adjusting nut. Loosen the adjusting nut from tie rod. Don't unthread it too much from its spot, just loosen it! Now useing a pair of vice grips and the wrench for the tie rod, unscrew the tie rod. Put the vice grip were the shaft has a contoured teeth were you can get a grip with the vice grip. You can figure out the rest.

I'll proceed to explain the rest later. Let me know if you are interested in knowing so I'm not wasteing my time here.

 

Good write up.
Reminds me that I need to check out all that stuff to see if it needs to be replaced.