Front lower ball joint nut removal tips?
 

For a 2017 with 50K miles, the ball joint nuts sure are giving me problems. In no particular order: I've soaked them overnight in BP blaster, used a wrench, used an impact gun, beat at them with a hammer, cut away the boot and cleaned the grease and gripped the ball joint shaft with vice grips, straight wailed away on the control arm with a sledge, and even (unsuccessfully) tried to use a pry bar to pull off the caps underside the ball joints on the bottom of the control arms: nothing I seem to do will get the ball joint nut to break free. The bolt just spins endlessly with the nut. Subaru's design is giving me fits.

Is there a secret? This is driving me mad, I spent at least two hours on a single side trying to get it off. My next step is to cut the nut off with a dremel with a metal cutting disk, but I'd rather avoid that just due to the tight nature of the space.

I don't care about the condition of the ball joint, ball joint nut, or LCAs after I'm done. It's all getting replaced.

Why not rent the tool from a place close by? The right tool makes it far easier

I don't know what you mean by "the tool", but I've got a pickle fork. My problem isn't pulling the ball joint, it's the ball joint nut, which is to say, the nut holding the ball joint in the LCA, to the upright.

Yeah, the service manual just tells you "Remove the cotter pin and nut.". To actually remove the ball joint from the knuckle it tells you to use the puller, but a pickle fork should work just as well (especially if you don't care about reusing it).

No idea how to remove the nut in your case, though. Perhaps a nut splitter would be easier to use than a Dremel with a cutoff wheel?

You are too far gone now. Likely need to use a nut splitter.

When I get one that is stubborn I’ll take a pickle fork and tap it between the knuckle and the control arm to put tension on the ball joint. Then hit the nut with impact. Doesn’t work every time.

That's what I feared. I guess I'm picking up a nut splitter on the way home from work today.

Why can't they have sensible ball joint design? What's wrong with a keyed shaft? I'm replacing the entire assembly with SPL Parts' FLCA, which has a heim joint with a through-stud in place of the ball joint. No more of this mess.

Thanks to y'all for weighing in.

Tried a torch at all? I don't see it mentioned so I thought I'd ask.

No, I haven't got a torch. A nut splitter's cheaper than a torch, so...

Ahh ok, that sucks then. Make sure you've got something to heat it up or use a nut splitter

The nut splitter didn't work due to the ball joint nut having a flange and being recessed into the knuckle. I ended up having to go with the Dremel with metal cut-off wheel.

I cut down the midpoint of the shaft until I got to the nut, cut off one half of the shaft, rotated the nut/shaft with vice grips 180 degrees, cut off the remaining half of the shaft, an then cut down the center of the shaft/nut combo. Finally popped off one side of the nut and then was able to rotate what remained of the nut separately from the ball joint.

That was a lotta work. This is the first time I have cause to say, "If I ever met the engineer that designed this I'd give them a good choke."

Who the hell comes up with an integral ball joint without a keyed shaft or something?

Glad you finally got it off, pal. After spending some time wrenching on this car, I found myself thinking the exact same thing at least few times.

Gotta say, at that point, why not melt it? Cant be tight if its liquid

Well, first off 'cause I already did it, second, I don't have a torch, third, I'm still using the knuckles, and if I actually torched the nuts hot enough to get the steel malleable it would affect the integrity of the knuckle and possibly the hub.

over a week too late here, but you should have been pushing on the ball joint, not pulling on it.

Every ball joint Mfr for the last 90 years or so has used a tapered fitting and I've rarely had issues getting the nuts loose. Modern Japanese cars use torque on the nut to put some tension on the threads and keep the nut from loosening. Murican cars (and earlier Japanese) use a castle nut and cotter pin at much lower torque. I've never had any of them come loose on me when properly installed.

That said, how to get these things loose is to jack up the car from the bottom of the ball joint. you put the ball joint in compression with a bunch of weight on it and that keeps it from spinning. then zap the nut with a good strong impact wrench and it'll pop right off.

shoving a pickle fork under there and prying the ball joint down only made the problem worse because it was pulling the tapered pin out of the joint putting all of the pressure on the threads of the nut and not keeping the pin jammed in place so it won't spin.

once the nut is loose, then and only then should you wail on the knuckle or use the pickle fork to release the pin.

After the fact, but HTH someone else.

The Twins use a castle nut and cotter pin. Would that still benefit from your explanation?

Strange. neither my 13 nor 17 had castle nuts. they just had a standard flange nut with a cotter pin.

But yes- any ball joint or tie rod end that uses a tapered pin will work this way. shove the pin farther into the taper and it won't spin as easily. Once the nut is removed, then wail on the side of the knuckle around the pin with a hammer. a few good whacks will deform that taper just enough that the pin comes loose. voila.

Oh, I might have incorrectly interpreted the picture from the repair manual...

Nope, mine is a '17 and it had castle nut + cotter pin on a tapered shaft. Matt's may've been replaced at some point with the incorrect nut?

Very well coulda been. used cars and all that jazz.

That's always the way. I replaced mine with the setup from SPLParts, so now it's just a locknut. I put some paint on it to detect if the nut slips.

Same here. I alternate white, orange, and yellow paint pens as I do service work so it's easier to tell which mark is the latest.

Nothing wrong with the design, almost all ball joints have been that way forever. Sounds more like a corrosion issue or most likely an improper install issue. I have never had the taper fit break free before the nut. I would have tried to retighten or even overtorque the nut then heat/penetrant to remove.

Cross threading the worlds free loctite.