I done messed up. I have a 1989 2wd 3.0 vze.

I must have been out of it this morning and decided to not follow along with my service manual. (Dumb I know) Anyway, if anyone could help me out I would really appreciate it.

So I removed the top 4 bolts on the upper ball joint first, instead of loosening the castle nut at the bottom first. As you probably know, this makes using a separator/puller impossible. Problem is I can't get the upper control arm down far enough to reattach the upper ball joint to it where the bolts come through. I looked at my Haynes service manual and I can't find anything relating to the amount of force needed to get the balljoint back up to the upper control arm.

I think even if I would have gotten the ball joint off correctly, I'd still be having this problem. Any ideas? Let me know if you have questions.

Again, any help is appreciated!

 

You could use a floor jack and lift the whole assembly up to reach the top a arm. If I'm following you post right.
Pictures are always a huge help

 

Yeah, put a floor jack under the lower control arm and raise it until you start lifting the truck. Then if you get two longer bolts and put them in opposite holes, you should be able to tighten the two together enough to hold while you use the fork.
Or you could smack the knuckle where the stud goes through REALLY HARD with a hammer, and you should be able to pop the stud loose. Your call.

 

Thanks. I'll put some photos up tomorrow if I'm still struggling. I already have a jack under the lower control arm if that's what you mean. I tried to jack it up fairly high, but I got above the jack stand a little too much for my comfort.

I'll get back on it tomorrow and follow up.

 

Disconnect the shock if you haven't already.

 

Maybe try a pickle fork/ hammer if you are just going to replace the ball joint, which it sounds like you are

 

Thanks for the help everyone. The ball joints didn't need replaced after all, but at least I got some new shocks in.

Just for the future, if anyone has a similar problem, I needed to move my jack way over to a spot on the lower control arm just below the strut bar in order to get the proper leverage. I originally had more to the center of the truck and no amount of jacking was going to get it up to where it needed to be.

Happy fixin' everybody.

 

Buy a set of jack stands. Never work on a vehicle only supported by a hydraulic jack.

 

Oh I totally had jack stands underneath the side rails.

Definitely needed those for this job to be even possible, and more importantly safe.