Puller mushroomed LBJ bolt - free spinning bolt!

[deevergote]

You don't need to undo the brakes. Just pull the entire lower assembly off. Lower control arm, hub, rotor. You can pop out the upper ball joint, or you can undo the anchor bolts at the top and just take the whole thing. Undo all the lower stuff, then the two nuts holding the upper control arm anchor bolts in place in the engine bay. Given your current ball joint issues, it might be best to do that... just so you don't end up messing up the uppers as well! (inspect them. If the boots are cracked, you WILL have to replace those too)

[BandwagonPilot]

Haha, yeah, no joke. I'd be SUPER pissed if I messed up the upper joints. I see where to take it off of the chassis, but the brake line is connected to the assembly. You might be able to take it off, I just can't tell with all of the grease and oil. I'll tell you in 15 minutes if that's the case. >_<

[deevergote]

The brake line shouldn't be connected. It bolts to the shock to keep the line out of harm's way, and it goes to the caliper. Nothing should be bolted to the stuff you're removing.

Unless, of course, you have ABS... I know nothing about ABS, and I've never worked on a CB7 that had it... If that's the case, there may be something attached that I'm not aware of.

[BandwagonPilot]

No ABS. You're right, as usual. I was just working on the opposite side of the assembly and didn't see it. Okay, so when I remove the upper control arm. For the sake of my crappy lucky, should I remove the upper control arm where it attaches to the fork, or should I remove it where it attaches to the bottom of the strut tower?

And as a side note. You're pretty much my hero, thanks for always helping me.

[GreenMadness]

I didn't finish reading through but. older OEM ball joints still used the snap ring(im pretty sure), new aftermarket still uses the snap ring. NEW honda OEM dont use a snap ring and have a press fit.

There are a few problems you can run into here. so i just though i would give you fair warning.
-sometimes the lower ball joint cannot clear the bearing, this happened on my car, neither bearing was flush with the inner spindle creating a lip that the LBJ ran into, so my only option was to press the bearing out (was replacing anyways). so becareful hoepfully yours just pops out.

- second when installing the new ball joint make sure you take the boot off to check for a good greased part and to make sure you dont rip it when the knock the new one in.

- for me the process was take off snap ring, press out bearing, hammer and torch the shit out of the LBJ until it will come out, press in new one, press in new bearing, install new boots, install new hardware.

[JohnD1079]

No ABS. You're right, as usual. I was just working on the opposite side of the assembly and didn't see it. Okay, so when I remove the upper control arm. For the sake of my crappy lucky, should I remove the upper control arm where it attaches to the fork, or should I remove it where it attaches to the bottom of the strut tower?

And as a side note. You're pretty much my hero, thanks for always helping me.

Remove it fro where it attaches to the shock tower, sooo much easier. The check to see if you'll need UBJs. If you do, till be easier changed them while the UCA is off than on. If not, you just saved youtself a hassle by not separating the UCA form the spindle

[deevergote]

Yeah, leave the UBJ attached and just pull the UCA off at the anchor bolts. Undo the 2 bolts in the engine bay. If the lower stuff is movable, you should be able to slide those bolts out and remove the entire assembly. It's a pretty backwards way to do things, but it will avoid having to pop more ball joints, and by removing the whole thing (anchor bolts and all) you should avoid creating any major alignment issues as well. I would still get an alignment soon after you do all this though, just to be safe. $75 for an alignment is cheaper than $150 for 2 new tires installed.

[BandwagonPilot]

Yeah, I'm going to get an alignment when I get it done. I FINALLY finished the driver's side, still have to tackle the passenger's tomorrow. Here's how I did it:

I figured out to take it from the shock tower, so I removed the upper control arms from the chassis, and pulled the hub/rotor out as one piece. I managed to remove the snap ring while the assembly was still attached. I went to remove the whole assembly after, HOWEVER, there were six bolts holding it to the brake caliper and rotor, and and I tried to get the two large ones off, but to no immediate prevail. So I said eff it, and just held the UCA and pounded the shit out of the ball joint until it almost came out. I hammered it back down, ripped off the rest of the cover, and pounded it back through until it FINALLY came out. Getting the new ball joint in was MUCH easier, a few whacks of the hammer and it when right through. I placed the ring back on, and then re-assembled everything. I was SO worried that in the whole fiasco that I would accidentally rip the boot on the new driveaxle. I didn't see anything wrong, but I won't know until tomorrow.

SIDE NOTE: It was a pain in the butt trying to get the two bolts to line back up through the strut tower. But not nearly as hard as it was to get the old LBJ out.

Thanks for all of the help guys!

[deevergote]

Good to hear some good news