Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Branches New England Ball Joints

Hello Everyone,
Happy New Year!

Just wondering if anyone knew a ball park figure for getting the right front lower ball joints replaced on a 95 Mystique? My car failed inspection last week.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks...

I can't see one going for more then $30 to $60 for the part itself


as for install I couldn't really say, the rivits will have to be drilled out and the new one bolted in place, might take a two or three hours as you would need to get the knuckle out of the way


now i would check the bushings for the control arm at the same time, as with my 95 mystique this is actually what went before the ball joints at 128k, actually the ball joints were still good on my car, one was going just a little bit

Thanks for the info...

My father in law is going to look at the car tonight - I have done some searching as to how to replace (God I LOVE this site!)And it doesn't seem to hard. He used to work for a ford dealership some time ago...fingers crossed this may be something he can do for me!

I saw the ball joints at advanced auto for $38.99 - It's the labor from a garage that will kill me!!

Here's hoping....

yeah the labor is going to be expensive, but I have no idea how much that might be as I do the work myself


but to get to the ball joint easily the knuckle will have to come out, that way you don't have to remove the arm itself and I can tell you that is not what you want to do if you can help it


otherwise the rivets will have to be drilled out and broken and the new ball joint should bolt right on, then it just has to go back together


I suggest looking a the bushings as if they need to be replaced the new arm comes with ball joints on it already, so it would be getting two things at once

good point on the bushings brian.
you shouldn't have to take the spindle off the car to do the ball joint.
loosen the nut and either pry the arm down or hit the top of the ball joint with a hammer, if you can get to it.
that should make i pop out of the spindle.
the easier way to get the rivits off is to knock the heads off with an air chisel.
then they can be punched out.
then the new joint just slides up in and gets bolted in place.

thats true you could do it without removing the spindle but i think it would be alot easier, otherwise you are trying to hold the arm down or more the spindle out of the way to clearly get to the rivits on the arm

I've changed a ball joint on Taynar's car after the rubber boot was damaged during the strut install.

Ball joints are not difficult to change, but they do involve removing the strut on the side you're changing. They are held in with rivets, I removed the rivets by drilling the heads off and then drilling a pilot hole through the shank and then pushing the rest of the shank out with a pneumatic hammer. New ball joints come with a new boot and are held in place with bolts rather than rivets becasue 90% or more of auto shops do not have the proper tooling to properly install rivets.

depending on what kind of lower A arms your car has it might be more cost effective to just replace the entire control arm. There are two kinds, one installed to the sub-frame with spherical bushings and vertically oriented hardware and another with cylindrical bushings and a horizontal shaft attaching them to the frame. I'm not sure which but one type is considerably less expensive than the other.

I just wanted to Thank Everyone for you help...

I have gotten the car repaired.

$147.50 parts and labor

Thanks Everyone!!