Thank you Pop for posting that video.

If I don't use the impact gun, I'm in the hospital with damaged nerves in my neck.
Been there done that and I won't do that sort of job ever again without using the impact gun.
Pinched nerves make you feel like your arm is on fire for months.
The only reason that I didn't use the gun on the second video is there was not enough room for it.
.
Just grease the threads with moly grease before using the press and it will never wear out.
Pop only posted one video, the other one there is not enough room for the gun to fit on top of the press and I had to use a cheater bar along with a sledge hammer turned sideways to dislodge the VERY stubborn upper ball joint on that VW bus.
When I did the ball joints on my truck, they were super easy compared to that bus.
I don't remember if there was an upper c-clip or not.
Here's the other video.

YouTube - 1979 VW Bus Upper Ball Joint Remove

 

eh... maybe. That's not enough of an argument to keep me from using the impact next time. Particularly the "control" part. Driving the ball joints in and out isn't like removing lug nuts during a nascar pit stop. Its actually a really slow, smooth process. Plenty of control.

 

When I ordered my OTC ball joint press, I expected to see an acme thread when I opened it. I saw those unified standard threads and was like WTF!

Unified threads are your typical machine screw threads. You know, the threads that you can strip in a tapped hole quite easily. I know they're bigger on the ball joint press, but they must've decided to go that route to keep costs down.

You won't hurt the knuckle if you use an impact gun. If you're using an Autozone tool, you might have to use an impact gun as aforementioned. It's not hard to improperly align a ball joint ever so slightly when pressing one in. I can feel it going in wrong with a socket wrench, breaker bar or 4-way and correct it quickly. If I helped someone do their ball joints and I brought my press, they won't put an impact gun to it and if they did, I'd stop them immediately. I don't wail on my tools.

I reached a point while pressing out my sway bar eye links where I felt a binding in the tool begin. I stopped, backed it off a bit and started tapping the part with a hammer which shot it out like a bullet. I'm not sure I wouldn't have damaged the tool had I kept going. Maybe the tool would've bent before the threads got munged up, IDK and didn't want to find out.

 

I do agree with you on that point!

From my first post in this thread.....