Front lower control arm ball joint nut installation

onkelmicke

Registered User
Hi, I'm having difficulty installing that ball joint nut as the bolt keeps rotating on me.
I degreased and lightly sanded the surface of the cone as well as the mounting hole but I haven't found a way to clamp them together enough to jam it. As the shock is mounted to the lower arm and the spindle is free to move it doesn't help to put pressure on it with the jack.
Anyone got some tricks?
 
There are two methods I use in that case.

Are you using an impact gun on the nut?

One is to put the car on the ground, using the vehicle weight to load the bushing shaft into the arm, then finding a way to get the nut tight. You may need to get in there with an wrench to get it snug, then take the wheel off and get it back in the air to reach in with an impact, etc.

The other is to go the other direction and wedge the arm down. This will load the ball joint in the arm in the same fashion. I use a balljoint separator/pickle fork, being careful to not damage the ball joint while hitting the nut with an impact gun.
 
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Unfortunately I don't have any power tools. And I haven't been able to get at it from above, there's not much room.
 
Unless you can sufficiently end load it, I don't think you'll get very far without either an air or electric impact. The impact will either spin the nut faster than the stud can rotate, pulling the nut down, or it will spin the stud so that friction makes it grab in the lower arm.

Perhaps you could put some max strength thread locker on the tapered stud (not the threads), then jack up on the arm and leave it to set up.

Might be you could find a nut that spins easy on the stud, perhaps adding a flat washer, and use it to pull the stud up into the arm, first, then take that off and install the OE nut.

Maybe you could force the arm off forwards/backwards, tilting the stud in the hole, making it jam enough so that you can tighten the nut...

How far is the nut on the threads, now?
 
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Do you have a photo?

I don't see how the nut could contact anything but the metal on the spindle...

I'm talking about the threaded studs in this photo:

attachment.php
 
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Yes, I mean the plastic locking insert in the top of the locknut, so it is on the thread a fair bit but far from contacting the surface of the spindle.
 
Ah. I thought you meant something internal to the ball joint.

I would use a standard, non-locking nut to pull the stud into the spindle, coating the stud taper section that sits in the spindle with lock-tite (keeping in mind that may make it harder to remove next time), then clamp it with a large c-clamp and wait over night. Then remove the placeholder nut and see if you can coax the lock nut into place instead. Might heat it up in hot water or with a heat gun so it doesn't grab so much when turning.
 
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Ok, I could try that. But I don't think I will use locktite as it was really hard to get it off as it was.
Thanks.
 
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