97 Elantra Ball Joint
 

OK, so I've been working on replacing the driver side wheel front bearing on my 97 Elantra. The steering knuckle is out, and I just had a machine shop press out and press in the new bearing. Woo!

However, the ball joint boot, which was already torn to begin with, got even more torn while separating it from the steering knuckle. Now I'm thinking I should just replace it while everything is apart. Can I just take the arm out, and grind the rivet down until it pops out, or do I have to bring it back to the machine shop? How much of a procedure is this?

If it has to go back to the shop, I may have to pick a different one. They spent a good hour pressing the old bearing out, and I really wasn't sure if they were joking when they said not to come back with Hyundai parts anymore! ;-)

I just cut my ball joint boot off with a utility knife. Cleaned off the ball joint surfaces as well as I could, and bought some nice silicone replacements on eBay. You can get cheap ones at Autozone I found out later. Just load them up with some high temp bearing grease, slap them on. No muss, no fuss. Works better than originals. This is not rocket science here, the slop factor margin is wide.

In the future, note that you can replace the bearing yourself with a hammer and drift pin (the poor wrench bender method). It takes a little time, but once you do it you feel powerful and omnipotent. Just drive the bearing out a little at a time beating it with the hammer and pin, work in circles. It doesn't have to move too fast, eventually it will come out. Beat the new one back in the same way, maybe use a big socket the same size as the outer lip to drive it in.

Screw the machine shop if they are incompetent and drive penis extensions.

Another thing you can do, since you seem inclined, is to lubricate the tie rod ends with a grease gun and a special needle attachment (they have them at Autozone). Just shove the needle through the rubber boot and squirt in some grease. The car is old, so no doubt they are dry. You can squirt grease in your ball joints the same way. It just makes a little hole, and you can squirt in some more grease every year or so and preserve them.

Well, I just took the control arm off.. it was only 3 bolts on one side, and the long shank
bolt on the other. Anyway, there is enough play in the joint, and since it is the original at 200 kmi, I might as well replace it. After looking at diagrams on Autozone.com, I think it will have to be pressed out.

edit: Thanks.. I have done the grease needle trick. I will do that on the other side just in case. I replaced the tie rod end about 20kmi ago. The ball joint boot was kind of torn to begin with, and the pickle fork action did no help. I would be interested to know if I could grind out the bulk of the ball joint rather than have a shop do it, but if I have to spend an hour grinding away at this thing, I might as well bring the control arm to a shop.

I don't understand. Why replace the ball joint if it is not bad? If you do need to replace it, you can do it without removing the control arm using a special tool which is readily available. You don't "grind" out anything. Anyway, if it works, don't fix it.

There is enough play in the joint where I think it should be replaced. I can move it up and down in its socket about an 1/8" or so. The control arm took about 5 minutes to take out.. no big deal.

What is this tool for removing the ball joint?

Here's a universal one that does other things too:

http://cgi.ebay.com/4-in-1-Ball-Join...3A1%7C294%3A50

Search ebay for "ball joint tool"

Follow up: I took it to a local shop where some friends go. He popped the old ball joint out and had the new one in after 10 minutes. He didn't even charge me. Interestingly, he was able to hammer out the old one, but used the press to put the new one in. Thanks for the replies.