2000 Dakota Ball Joint...Gotta be a short cut!
 

Hi guys. I'm working on my buddies 00 dodge dakota. 2 x 4

It needed upper and lower ball joints among other things.

The labor guide only books 1.9 hours for the lower ball joints. Unless there's some insanely easy shortcut to grinding off the rivets, heating them and driving them out it's obvious that the person that wrote the labor guide never actually had to do one.

The uppers weren't so bad. I ground off the bottom part of the rivet, heated them up and drove them out.

The lower....good grief! Because the ball joint is sandwiched between two layers of steel I had to grind off both ends of the rivets, (there are 4) heated them up and attempted to drive them out. No dice. I drilled a small hole in all of them hoping it would relieve the pressure holding them into the ball joint and attempted to drive them out again. Again, no love...of course. So I drilled a larger hole and ended up having to die grind almost all of the rivet out of each hole before I could get the joint out.

At this point I've only done one side.

I was really hoping someone had a shortcut that could save some time. At least on the lower that is sandwiched between two layers.

Thanks,

Wayne

Really? Nothing?

Not even, "sorry, that's the only way of doing it that I know of" or "yep, pain in a azz job, no short cuts that I know of".

Just nothing...

Well, thanks for nothing.

replace the lower control arm with the ball joint already installed

I've never done that job, but you won't get a rivet out by heating only the rivet. As the rivet heats up, it will expand, making it tighter in the hole. You must heat the surrounding metal while keeping the rivet cooler. The hole will expand if the metal all around it is warmed, but it's almost impossible to heat the surrounding metal without heating the rivet itself.

If you've got a pilot hole in the rivet already, you might as well drill those larger until you can punch out the remnant of the rivet.

Then you're dealing with the spring, shock and for sure it'll need an alignment. Not to mention the customer, in this case a good friend, has to buy a part he doesn't need.

What I ended up doing on the other side was drilled them completely out starting with a very small drill and progressivly stepping up until the riven fell out.

Still a lot of work, I'm not sure it saved any time other than I knew what to do in advance since I'd already done the other side.

I appreciated the replies but by the time I got them the job was done.

Thanks,

Wayne