E53 X5 Seized Front Balljoints

[AVI-8]

How do you remove the front thrust arms, tension arms and front ball joints? Simple, just remove the bolts from the arms, split them from their ball joints, remove the torx bolts from the ball joints and the whole lot comes free .... Eh not quite!

The problem in my case was that the ball joints were totally seized solid in the hub carrier, firstly I removed the suspension arms, that big was easy, though a universal balljoint splitter will not work due to the truck like dimensions of the X5 suspension, I used a balljoint fork and large hammer, access is not good if you're working from home with the car on axle stands, I was replacing my brake disks and pads anyway so once the disks were off it was only another 3 10mm bolts to remove to get the backplate free, they won't come off with the hub still attacked but they can be rotated and held in position by a bungee cord attached to the spring, once this is done its easy to get to the ball joints from the side of the car.

[AVI-8]

With good access to the ball joints a couple of hard hits with the hammer got them free.

Next the torx bolts for the ball joints have to come off, make sure you've a torx bit which is not worn as stripping the head from the bolt will spoil your day, I had sprayed penetrating fluid on all bolts the night before to hopefully make things easier, the torx bolts came out ok, I wouldn't have had enough room to remove the outer bolts with the brake disk backplates still in place, this is now where things went pear shaped for me ... The balljoints were totally seized, 3 hours of hammering, using heat, penetrating fluid and swearing a lot didn't budge them, I even tried to lever them out using a chisel under the lugs, just resulted in snapping one of the lugs off.

The problem is not helped by the CV joint which is directly above the balljoint this means that hammering them with a drift is made awkward and at an angle.

I made a tool, basically got my angle grinder out and cut in half one of the cups from a bush puller, this was just wider than the balljoint, and with the base fitted there was enough threads popping through that I had a few turns of the nut before winding the nut right. Here's a pic of the tool in place.

[AVI-8]

photobucket.com/user/AVI-8/media/imagejpg1-1.jpg.html][/URL]

Forgot to mention that I had to carefully dremmel the other lug off or this wouldn't have worked, it took a fair amount of tightening for the balljoint to come free.

Here's the offending Basta*d  once out! you'll see what I meant about removing the lugs in order for the tool to work

photobucket.com/user/AVI-8/media/imagejpg2-1.jpg.html][/URL]

[AVI-8]

Apologies for the multiple posts I'm not sure how much can be put in one post.

By now I'd spent all day on this so left the other side till next morning, same again used the Dremmel to remove both lugs, fitted the tool, this time though it got very tight with no sign of the balljoint coming out, put the breaker bar on tightened it some more, the balljoint came out ok .... Ripped it out of the casing leaving the casing still in place on the hub carrier. 

Pounded it some more, still stuck solid, the only way I could see to remove it was to remove the hub carrier completely which is another major job on its own, then I noticed that if my dremmel disk was slightly smaller I should be able to get it inside the hole left where the balljoint sat, so I ground it down by cutting off the lower lip, once done sure enough I could start to made a couple of full length cuts diagonally around the balljoint housing, this took nearly 2 hours of grinding, being careful to try not to cut into the hub carrier, after grinding I was able to get a set of vice grips on the piece between the 2 cuts and pull it back and forward until a fatigue split occurred whereby the cut bit came out, here's a pic of the mangled balljoint after the cuts were made.



Once this had been done I was able to remove the balljoint with a pair of pliers.

Here is what was left of it



To finish off, I sanded the corrosion off the hub carrier, lots of copper grease on the new ball joints and fitted them along with the new arms (Meyle HD) suspension arms, they're the best in my opinion and last longer than Leomfoerder. The new ball joints were Meyle also as were the disks.

I got my trolley jack under the lower brake disc attachment point to compress the suspension before tightening the inner bolts, it's much easier than tightening them with the wheels on, just don't get under the strut if you use this method just in case the hydraulics on your jack fail.



And thats it, all built back up now, 2 bleedin days ... And I thought it would take a couple of hours haha .. It would have done if the ball joints were integral to the thrust arms as they are on the E39 Hey Ho

[X5Sport]

Looks like you've been having fun...... >:( >:( >:(

[AVI-8]

[quote="X5Sport"]
Looks like you've been having fun...... >:( >:( >:(
[/quote]

At least the sun was shining !