When I was checking my brakes and had the front wheel off I was looking at the front suspension. I noticed that the bushing or cover for the upper ball joint was breaking down and cracked. So I got to thinking about replacing it. In the shop manual they show a special rig (see below) and special tools to remove the ball joints. The rig is put in place befor you jack up the car. Being a shade tree mechanic like many of us, I'm wondering if it is possible to use something else in lieu of special equipment. Such as a length of 2X4. Or is this something I need to send out. Once I get into the suspension I'm sure there will be a few other thing that should be done at the same time such as various bushings, nuts and bolts etc.

If anyone has any helpful hints I'd apreciate it. I'll also take a look at the FAQ section.

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well if you are gunna start getting into your front suspension i would just replace/rebuild the whole control arm since you will have it apart cause its 40yrs old and i am sure there are alot of parts in there that need replacing

 

You don't have to go to all that trouble. Just take a pickle fork and seperate the spindle from the ball joint, then you will have to take a chisel or drill or something and get the rivets out and Bolt the new one right in.

 

It looks like that setup is so you can replace the ball joints without removing the spring. Removing the control arm (to replace the bushings) would make that unneeded as you would have to remove the spring..... but I've been wrong before

 

It is hard believe that there are still mustangs out there iwth the original ball joints but it looks like you have one! You don't need that special tool just jack the car up and let the front suspension hang. Take off the big nut on the bottom and then break the ball joint loose with a pickle fork. It is good advice to go ahead and rebuild the entire upper A arm. If the ball joint is original, and it looks to be, I'm sure the bushing on the shaft are gone too. Maybe it is time to do a complete front end rebuild. Much easier to do it all at once than to do it a piece at a time.

 

Before anyone replaces a ball joint in a Mustang I suggest that they read a manual which specificly spells out the checking proceedure for their vehicle.

My experience is that about there is about 1 truly bad ball joint aout of each 100 replaced.

 

rebuild the whole thing since your already in there. That's what i did. What worked for me on the ball joints was drilling right through the rivets and using a chisel to clean up what was left.

 

I'm not quite sure I understand the problem. Is the upper control arm cracked? How do you know the ball joint needs replacing? How is the front end acting?

 

I've been looking at this as well since the upper and lower boots/covers on the ball joints are thrashed. I beliee this is just a means to keep the spring compressed when you jack up the front of the car. I've been thinking about rebuilding the entire front suspension given the poor condition it appears to be in. In that instance, I will need a spring compressor to remove the entire upper control arm. In short, I agree with Acadist, but I am new to Mustangs. I was actually wondering the same thing myself, except I have some pieces of steel bar that are about 1 foot long, and I was planning on trying to cut one down to the correct length. I was worried about it slipping though and really damaging me or the car[&:].

 

Just to clarify things. As far as I can tell I am not having any front end problems everything seems fine. The reason that I was asking about the ball joints is that when I inspected them the rubber boot or bushing what ever you call it is cracked and deteriorating. My motivation was more to replace the bushing but I might as well replace the ball joint while I'm at it. And then as others have mentioned there are other things to do while I'm in there. So I'll do some more research and at some point I'll get all up into the suspension and see what's what. The control arms and spindle seem to be fine no visible cracks so I'm thinging the stuff that will need to be replaced are soft parts that have broken down and deteriorated. After all after 40 years what do you expect.

BTW I had never heard of a pickle fork, so I checked it out. I guess there is one more tool I might need.

http://www.costplustools.com/store-p...Kit_40092.html