What’s wrong with this picture?

 

That's revise of the way it should be.
With that air tool it could fly in many parts.
Did you end up getting it apart?

 

That new looking tool is a ball joint separator i borrowed from AZ. It worked perfectly on the other side with just a couple of shots with air socket. On the drivers side I was expecting the same. Had the shock lower bolt out, the upper control arm bolt loose but in place (thank goodness). After several hits with the air socket it had not come apart nearly as easily as the other side. Gave it one more good shot with my hand in the position shown in the picture above. Hand OVER the ball joint you are separating is a bad place to be as I rudely found out. The BJ let go with a loud noise and rotated straight up into the spring.
On the way past my fingers it took off a small piece of skin. If my hand had been 1/4 inch more to the right it would have for sure at least broken my middle finger. Hand should have 1) had a glove on it and 2) been on the other side of the tool out of harms way. Lesson learned.

 

I cannot recommend this BJ separator enough. Last time I did this job 20 years ago I used a pickle fork. This
worked a lot better for me.

 

Glad you are OK, good write up for those using air tools. They exert a bunch of torque, so hands need to be out of the way. Please use extensions designed for air tools.

 

Fun racer - glad you still have your fingers. I had a similar situation on exactly the same job.

I undid the nut on the Ball Joint but left it on loose but fully threaded. So when my ball joint “cracked” it stopped the A arm moving. But I had tough time getting the nut off and then the ball joint thread wouldn’t move out of the hole. So stupidly I attacked it with the hammer and the A arm went flying up missing my head which was to one side. Should have just “cracked” BJ again and/or realigned the wheel hub with a jack.

BTW Also make sure you grease the thread of the BJ separator, and wear eye protection. Good rule of thumb is to avoid using air tools in confined spaces. People have broken wrists if socket stops and air tool twists you!

 

This is what I should have done.

 

Yup! I see it!! I try to remember to leave the nut on so when it finally pops it only pops to the nut. Them use a jack to push things around to get things apart.

When **** goes bad, it happens way to fast to react!

a trick I learned was to use the press to put some force on the stud. Then rap the side of the ball joint with a hammer to shock it. It usually breaks free with just a slight amount of force

 

I think I was lulled a bit by how easily the other one popped. I was expecting the same on this side and
became careless.

 

It's amazing how much we learn from a small patch of skin missing, and our brain say's Damn that was, (close, stupid, dumb, idiotic,) pick your own adjective. God usually looks out for us fools. Even with 40+ years of expierence. I still do dumb stuff, fortunately I still have all 10 fingers, 10 toes, and they all work. A little stiff now, and then but still functional. Thanks God!

Jack

 

The shock from releasing tension can be pretty extreme. I took the nuts off my outer tie rods and tapped with a hammer but both were tight. Went to Auto zone to get a tie rod separator, put the separator on one side, it went "POOM!" went to do the other side and just the the shock popped the other tie rod end out.

On my 20 ton press. I keep getting a longer and longer handle. I'm up to about 3 feet

 

Yes, I always leave the nut on the ball joint to stop it from flying. I also don't use an air gun. Too uncontrollable. It takes much longer, but I use a socket wrench. Keeps my hands out of the way.

 

The air gun is an absolute must have for the spring compressors. But you are correct a socket wrench would have worked as well on the BJ and been safer.

 

An air gun on a BJ separator seems a bit lazy/overkill to me but as I don't own one I would say that!

I managed to snap two BJ separators trying to release my bottom BJ and the second one was supposed to be for use on Lorrys.

 

The proper way to use that style of ball joint tool is with a socket wrench, not an air gun. You take the socket wrench and snug the BJ tool bolt to where you can't reasonably tighten it any more, then firmly tap the control arm at the ball joint with a (preferably) brass hammer. Tighten the bolt again, tap, tighten, tap etc.

By the third round of tightening/tapping, the ball joint should pop out, and not violently like with an air gun.

To tighten the ball joint down, if it spins in stead of tightening, find a suitable clamp to put downward pressure on the ball joint and then torque to value.