I have a lemon, I do believe. Coming home from Christmas shopping with my little girl the other day my right front brake caliper locked up on me. I hope it is the caliper cause I went ahead and bought me some new ones. The rotor was glowing when I pulled over to check it. I don't know what will go next. I do know that the Durango is going though. I tried to over look these things that were going wrong with it. But I have done too much work on it to forget it. I don't have a problem with Dodge cause my truck has been awsome. I just don't know what they did to this one.
Anyway, while I was changing my calipers out, I noticed that there was movement in my ball joints. So I went ahead and started to change these monsters out. The top ones came right off. After grinding the tops of the rivets off the bottem ones, the pins will not come out. Does anyone have a suggestion for this? I have drilled a hole about 1/2 way through each pin and shot some PB Blaster in there to loosen them up...no such luck. I took a drift pin and hit it with a 32oz. hammer...no luck. Then I used a sledge...no luck yet. Any ideas?

 

Pretty sure the uppers are rivited in.. those should be fairly simple to remove.. but the lowers are pressed in. You need a press kit to R/R them.

 

No...both uppers and lowers are rivited in. I have ground the tops off of the rivets and have the tops removed. But the pins will not budge on the lowers. Any suggestions?

 

found this on another site. hope it helps

http://www.pavementsucks.com/tech/balljoint.php

 

Lowers are for sure pressed in, if you are grinding on something on the lower arm STOP. Get a serice manual or some help, you are doing something very wrong.

 

I don't have a 4x4 durango...it is a 2x4. The 4x4's have the rivited uppers and press-in lowers. The 2x4's have rivited uppers and lowers. I don't know a whole bunch about mechanics but I do know this for sure. I have pulled everything off of the front end. There are rivets going through the lowers. The replacements that I have bought for both bolt in. The lower is sandwiched between the lower A-arm. That makes it difficult for removal. My problem lies there. The rivets are long. I am just going to have to drill them out.

 

Here is a pic of the lowers off e-bay. Look same as the ones I have.



[IMG]local://upfiles/8803/715D8C576BE8441CB1638543F261104A.jpg[/IMG]

 

well I suggest you contact a dealership service department and also check if your vehicle is on the recall list they would have replaced the ball joints for free but I do have a haynes manual for 98 and 99 what year is yours I will see if it has anything on changing the ball joints scan it and send it to you.