Any easy way to get to nut on inner ball joint?

[gmushial]

I've got the old control arm and ball joints out... and other than getting access to the nut on top of the inner ball joint (passenger side), went pretty straight forward... but after the fact: is there some double secret, only the insiders know, way to easily remove the nut on the top of that inner ball joint?... doesn't look like one can access it from above... I was able to get access, one 1/16 of a turn at a time with a combination wrench from the front, from below, over the swap bar, ... but is there a better way?

[pine1000]

I seem to remember removing the ground wire and using a long extension and a swivel joint from the top.

[bluptgm3]

I’ve always attacked it the way you went, laborious 1/16 turn at a time.


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[BimmerBreaker]

I've been able to get to them from the top with some creative uses of universal joints (I think I needed one right on the 22mm, and one 6-12" up from there? I used enough extensions to ratchet it from above the engine)

I can get them from the bottom too, but very tedious. Try to get it from the top...

[Randy Forbes]

I've been able to get to them from the top with some creative uses of universal joints (I think I needed one right on the 22mm, and one 6-12" up from there? I used enough extensions to ratchet it from above the engine)

I can get them from the bottom too, but very tedious. Try to get it from the top...

? All the ones I remove/replace have been 21mm...

Since I'm usually standing up under the car when I remove them, my practice is to break them loose with a standard 3/8" drive 6-pt socket on a flex-head ratchet. The flex-head allows the handle to pivot up or down through the swing to clear obstacles. Once loose, I often resort to a purposely shortened 21mm open-end wrench to speed up the removal process.

What I find to be a problem, is to get the taper to release without damaging to the rubber gaiter__if you're removing the LCA to replace it with a new one, then no problem; beat away on it with a pickle-fork__because I'm most often just taking out one side or the other, so I can swing the entire XMBR out of the way for access to the bottom end of the engine...

... sometimes more

[rf900rkw]

Access from the top very much depends on which engine you have.

What tooling are you guys using to get a 1/16th turn at a time?

[gmushial]

Access from the top very much depends on which engine you have.

What tooling are you guys using to get a 1/16th turn at a time?

I used a box wrench to break it loose... and then an open end wrench, and flipping it over for each increment... and I suspect the 1/16th should have been "1/16", ie, maybe it's 1/12th of a turn - don't remember my open end wrench offset angles... ... but since I'll need to put a few miles on these and then check that they're still torqued - I'll see if with the appropriate combination of extensions, I can't do that from the top. This is for a M52TUB25.

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? All the ones I remove/replace have been 21mm...

Since I'm usually standing up under the car when I remove them, my practice is to break them loose with a standard 3/8" drive 6-pt socket on a flex-head ratchet. The flex-head allows the handle to pivot up or down through the swing to clear obstacles. Once loose, I often resort to a purposely shortened 21mm open-end wrench to speed up the removal process.

What I find to be a problem, is to get the taper to release without damaging to the rubber gaiter__if you're removing the LCA to replace it with a new one, then no problem; beat away on it with a pickle-fork__because I'm most often just taking out one side or the other, so I can swing the entire XMBR out of the way for access to the bottom end of the engine...

... sometimes more

I like the idea of the flex head wrench... 'cause yes, that would allow one to move up and over the obstructions.. :-) will have to look into that.... do have some extra short pattern combination wrenches, but the largest is 19 :-(

[Randy Forbes]

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[gmushial]

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Did you get bit by the forum software again? :-(