I just finished changing the ball joints in my car. Thanks Mike for the phone help. I discovered you do not need a pickle fork at all to do ball joint. what i did was put the floor jack under the ball joint and force up. then hit down on the control are and POW ball joint out of the control arm with out tearing your boot to shreds. make sure you dont hit the wheel speed sensor though :ugh: driving with the new joints is great, it feels like a whole new car. (my old ones were TOASTED). these took alot of slack out of the steering.
yups, makes a LOT of difference. I've been through them and the last ones that were on really was loose....I didn't like it at all.
i just got the napa cheapo ones. it was like $50 for both. they were about 3 dollar cheaper ea than from subaru, but i was already there so i got them there.
50 for both? wow... Are they the 'lubed for life" ball joints or do they have a fitting for periodic lubrication?
I did not see any zerks or anything on them so i am asuming that you dont need to lube them up. as far as i know the only reason they go bad is when the bot tears and sand and other junk gets in there. Otherwise i have atleast 60k on my car without lubing up the ball joints. since your replacing them anyway you can use a pickel for which will make things easier, on you and your control arms.