I learned the hard way about heating ball joints. One exploded and shot into the floor so hard it chipped our cement away. From this point on I have NEVER heated a ball joint
Whoa! Really? How'd the even happen? You heated it and then applied force right?
And just to note, all those rentals don't make you pay for it if you break it. Only if you don't return it, or say you cut it on purpose or something dumb.
Yup, rapid heating of the grease in the joint eventually combusted, at least thats all I can think of. Thank god it was pointed down and my foot was out of the way. It made one hell of an explosion sounded like a .45 bullet going off right next to your head.
Working on the driver side ball joint first. Bad news is the previous owner tack welded the lower driver side ball joint in! I thought that's odd, maybe they were cheap and thought this would prolong its life. Wrong!! Apparently they used the wrong kind of tool and took a small chunk of metal out of the lower contract arm. Just enough of a gouge in the sealing area that the new ball joint goes right into place but won't stay. guess I will be buying a new control arm.
I learned the hard way about heating ball joints. One exploded and shot into the floor so hard it chipped our cement away. From this point on I have NEVER heated a ball joint
The explosion was probably the pressure inside the ball joint from the grease burning inside until the ball came out of the socket not only getting hit by it the burns from the grease splatter, happens often freeing caliper pins
I learned the hard way about heating ball joints. One exploded and shot into the floor so hard it chipped our cement away. From this point on I have NEVER heated a ball joint
The same thing happened to me, it exploded with me and my brother standing there. We never did find the ball stud, took a huge chunk out of the concrete, probably would've done some serious damage if it hit one of us! I don't care for heat on balljoints anymore either.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/OTC-Ball-Joint-Jeep-Truck/dp/B000O1E52E"]Amazon.com: OTC (8031) Ball Joint Set for Jeep/Truck: Automotive@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XqDk8l-AL.@@AMEPARAM@@41XqDk8l-AL[/ame]
This is what I got and it works perfect. Every sleeve you could ever need.
Heat the knuckle while its under pressure from the jaw. Give a whack with a mini sledge to pop it free. Not a lot of heat needed. And if its all clamped up there is virtually no possibility of anything going flying.
