Originally posted by ATCC SVT:
perry in the chance that you did damaged the boot on the lower ball joint, which IMHO is not something that would happen if you were being careful. And FWIW you CAN get just the lower ball joint from Ford, you don't have to buy a whole A-arm as you described. I am sorry to say that they ripped you off when you could have just bought the ball joint replacement kit. The replacement of the damaged one requires drilling out of the rivets and then the replacement ball joint is fastened in with bolts instead of rivets. This is how Ford sells the repair kit.
The last car I did was a 98.5 SVT and the ball joint came out EASY, even though it was the rustiest and dirtiest SVT I have done. IF you use lots of WD-40 is really loosens up any rust or dirt and makes life a wole lot simpler.
The shop that I had the repair to the ball joint at uses Napa parts if they can, Ford dealer for the rest. They said that Napa used to carry the ball joint by itself and would be repaired as you describe, but they don't make it any more. And Ford would only sell them the complete A-arm assembly, not just the ball joint. I also checked with one of the online Ford parts places and they would only sell me the complete A-arm. No mention of a repair kit after I described my problem. Maybe the parts guys were unaware that the repair kit existed. Not saying you're wrong, it's just what I found out w/ 3 different sources.
We used lots of wubya dee and lots of liquid wrench and a BFH and the stupid thing wouldn't come loose. My car was just shy of 5 years old when we did this (December 2000, born March 96), so maybe it was just stuck or the design somehow changed with the SVT.
The ball joint was damaged in a last ditch attempt to use a pickle fork. Don't do that. We couldn't even get it seperated with the pickle fork, it was stuck pretty good.
