Gerald Morris
Senior Member
Esteemed Moparians,
This afternoon I rest from hot, frustrated toil with the spare left LCA I have in a SUDDEN NECESSITY to replace the front suspension on Gertrude, discovered this past Tuesday when replacing the front left tire. I have PLENTY AUDIBLE SLACK in my steering hardware, which came up rather suddenly in the past couple weeks. I'm not too surprised, given that this car has all the factory original parts on it, but the car has become dangerous at any speed I fear.
So, having all the parts this time, and a much improved panoply of tools, I commence with preparing the left LCA, both upper control arms and the sway bar before I park Gertrude for the surgery. I have ONE putative ball joint separator obtained from AutoZone, which I'm now attempting to press the ball joint stud out with, as can be seen here:
Left LCA w "OEM" brand ball joint separator at moderate torque and pressure.
I BOUGHT an "OTC" separator, their much sold 6297 from Amazon, ALWAYS A MISTAKE, and got some cheap piece of sino-slop SO POORLY MADE IT LACKED THE ESSENTIAL NUMERIC STAMP OF 513243 on the forked, threaded portion of the tool. This was BAD, and Amazon happily agreed to refund my $ when I called this **** out. I will follow up with some exposure of the slime vendor that perpetrated this Bait and Switch job too. I then ordered a far more likely, older tool of this sort from an eBay vendor. I tried the first only because BeZoZon offered a 1 day turnaround, but it turned out I dared not use the potmetal, stapled into an OTC container which they shipped.
I don't have terribly high confidence in the DESIGN of the 6297, or all the clones spawned by it. So, I'm asking you Elder Moparians if a tool more like that portrayed in the FSM is the ONLY sort I should use for this purpose, or have any of you used these lever type separators on the LCA-lower ball joint studs with good, consistent results? I ask now because while I can afford a bit to experiment with THIS left LCA, I have ONLY ONE RIGHT LCA, namely, that which is on the car. The one from Mathilda got hopelessly BENT, and has been scrapped accordingly.
This afternoon I rest from hot, frustrated toil with the spare left LCA I have in a SUDDEN NECESSITY to replace the front suspension on Gertrude, discovered this past Tuesday when replacing the front left tire. I have PLENTY AUDIBLE SLACK in my steering hardware, which came up rather suddenly in the past couple weeks. I'm not too surprised, given that this car has all the factory original parts on it, but the car has become dangerous at any speed I fear.
So, having all the parts this time, and a much improved panoply of tools, I commence with preparing the left LCA, both upper control arms and the sway bar before I park Gertrude for the surgery. I have ONE putative ball joint separator obtained from AutoZone, which I'm now attempting to press the ball joint stud out with, as can be seen here:
Left LCA w "OEM" brand ball joint separator at moderate torque and pressure.
I BOUGHT an "OTC" separator, their much sold 6297 from Amazon, ALWAYS A MISTAKE, and got some cheap piece of sino-slop SO POORLY MADE IT LACKED THE ESSENTIAL NUMERIC STAMP OF 513243 on the forked, threaded portion of the tool. This was BAD, and Amazon happily agreed to refund my $ when I called this **** out. I will follow up with some exposure of the slime vendor that perpetrated this Bait and Switch job too. I then ordered a far more likely, older tool of this sort from an eBay vendor. I tried the first only because BeZoZon offered a 1 day turnaround, but it turned out I dared not use the potmetal, stapled into an OTC container which they shipped.
I don't have terribly high confidence in the DESIGN of the 6297, or all the clones spawned by it. So, I'm asking you Elder Moparians if a tool more like that portrayed in the FSM is the ONLY sort I should use for this purpose, or have any of you used these lever type separators on the LCA-lower ball joint studs with good, consistent results? I ask now because while I can afford a bit to experiment with THIS left LCA, I have ONLY ONE RIGHT LCA, namely, that which is on the car. The one from Mathilda got hopelessly BENT, and has been scrapped accordingly.
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