Date:         Sun, 31 Oct 2004 17:14:04 -0500
Reply-To:     Robert Harris <rdh24@CORNELL.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Harris <rdh24@CORNELL.EDU>
Subject:      upper ball joint hell
In-Reply-To:  <200410311817.i9VIHMee016707@filter01.mail.cornell.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

OK, I am about to toss in the towel and take my van to a mechanic for the
first time in history.  I think you have to be a he-man to do front end
work!  Upper ball joints -- how the heck do you get these suckers out of
the steering knuckle?  Those Germans sure do know how to make a press
fit.  I have tried: pounding with a hammer; pounding in a pickle fork;
liquid wrench + pounding pickle fork; heat knuckle with propane + pound on
pickle fork; pound on knuckle itself to shock the ball joint loose (per
Haynes); pound pickle fork some more...  all this bashing the front end is
great for blowing off stress but the upper ball joint is going
nowhere.  The only thing I haven't done is pull off the steering knuckle,
because I didn't want to mess with the brakes today.  Oh, and I haven't
tried dynamite yet but it's a possibility.  Any suggestions?

Robert Harris
Ithaca, NY
'84 Westy "Busaru" EJ22

PS  This morning I replaced my leaky transaxle seals (there's another job
that requires some serious persuasion, the drive flange seals are really a
tight fit) and switched to Redline MT90 synthetic gear oil.  Wow, that's
great stuff!  My van shifts like new now.  Anybody having trouble with hard
shifting now that the weather's cooling off, I highly recommend changing to
MT90 gear oil.