Ball Joint, 1997 Toyota Celica GT Options

[ILoveMySilly97]

So today I decided to change my wheel bearing. I chose to take off the hub assembly and just take it in to a local machine shop to get the bearing pressed so it'll be cheaper rather than taking it into an autoshop. But while I was in the process of removing the hub assembly. I tried to remove the Lower ball joint but couldn't find out how? I've helped my brother remove his hub assembly off his 92 Acura Integra RS but his was easier. It was just several taps on the side and it'll slide right out. We tried that method and it didn't budge? So I thought we had to do it the right way and borrowed the ball joint fork from AutoZone. I used it like how it's suppose to be but I ended up busting open my boot. I was clueless on how we were suppose to remove the hub assembly since that was the last part that was hold onto the hub assembly still. I looked around it and finally decided to just remove those 3 17mm nuts on the bottom of the ball joint to remove the hub assembly. My question is: The only way for the hub assembly to be removed, was to remove it with the ball joint by removing 3 17mm nuts right?

[Special_Edy]

I would remove the 3 nuts to get it loose. Once the spindle is off you can brace it against a curb or the lip of the garage floor and smack the shaft of the balljoint out with a medium hammer.

You will need an alignment once this is all done.

[playr158]

When you use a pickle fork on a ball joint, its a gaurenteed replace it with a new one (they're fairly inexpensive anyways) because you're going to rip the boot or push all the grease out. you gotta hit it pretty hard too.

[ILoveMySilly97]

When you use a pickle fork on a ball joint, its a gaurenteed replace it with a new one (they're fairly inexpensive anyways) because you're going to rip the boot or push all the grease out. you gotta hit it pretty hard too.

Actually the replacement part cost me 34 dollars.

[richee3]

Better than mine... I ran into some misfortune last month with my ball joints and had to cut the nuts off with a torch. Since I needed new ball joints then, I got reamed out of $120 at Advance Auto Parts for two new MOOG ball joints.