Pitman arm / ball joint separation
Elder User
Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 898
Likes: 3
From: Chillicothe, IA
Just want to clarify some things here. Anatomy of a twin i-beam 2wd front suspension.
Steering gear is connected to the pitman arm, pitman arm connects to drag link, drag link connects to passenger side steering knuckle and inner tie rod, inner tie rod connects to outer tie rod, outer tie rod connects to drivers side steering knuckle.
The steering knuckles are attacked to the i-beam via a king pin set up. There are basically 2 different types of connections or pivots for a steering knuckle. King pin, or ball joints. You friend was right in saying that the ball joints are not replaceable because you don't have any.
On my truck, I had to take quite a bit of material off one side of the puller to get it to line up properly on the pitman arm. Probably the hardest part was putting it back on. A lot of short turns with a wrench. Don't believe I had the proper sized socket at the time to put it back on. Now I have a 3/4 drive socket set.
Good luck.
Steering gear is connected to the pitman arm, pitman arm connects to drag link, drag link connects to passenger side steering knuckle and inner tie rod, inner tie rod connects to outer tie rod, outer tie rod connects to drivers side steering knuckle.
The steering knuckles are attacked to the i-beam via a king pin set up. There are basically 2 different types of connections or pivots for a steering knuckle. King pin, or ball joints. You friend was right in saying that the ball joints are not replaceable because you don't have any.
On my truck, I had to take quite a bit of material off one side of the puller to get it to line up properly on the pitman arm. Probably the hardest part was putting it back on. A lot of short turns with a wrench. Don't believe I had the proper sized socket at the time to put it back on. Now I have a 3/4 drive socket set.
Good luck.
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Mountain Pass
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 208
Likes: 28
That was the first method I tried. I feared damaging the steering gear after a few blows.
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