Grant wrote:Well, I managed to separate the ball joints from the front upper wishbones last night! I was considering buying an angle grinder for the job but figured I would try my oscillating multi-tool first. Surprisingly it worked with the help of a carbide blade, although it was not the most efficient tool in the world. But not bad really. In a little over an hour I was able to cut the heads off of the M8 bolts and then simply split the ball joints from the wishbones by hand.
Well done.
Looks like the bolts have become part of the balljoint casting and you'll be replacing the balljoint too.
If you're planning to do the other side I'd suggest you buy that angle grinder. Remember "The right tools and the right technique makes a 5 minute job take 3 minutes, without the right tools it takes 5 hours" - or 1 hour here.
An angle grinder with a 'cutting disc' (thin as cardboard not to be confused with a grinding disc that is much thicker) would cut through the balljoint cast iron and the bolts in just a couple of minutes.
Cut just on the edge of the casting as shown by yellow lines on your photo - but you'll only need to make two cuts towards the bolt heads if you've got the nuts off already
- BoltsCut.JPG (36.6 KiB) Viewed 12474 times
I couldn't live without an angle grinder or two ! I have a mains powered usually fitted with a cutting disc and Ryobi rechargable with a 'flap wheel'. The cutting disc goes through metal 'like a hot knife through butter' but leaves razor sharp edges so the flap wheel rounds them off before they give me 'an oil leak'. I also use the flapwheel to clean up the discs if I haven't used the car for several weeks - in cold damp UK discs can get surface rust on them quite quickly so I clean it off rather than get it in the pads and I find the OE brakes work fine with a bit of TLC. Not needed when it's warm but at the moment it's sitting outside in the rain at 60F/15C ... and we call this 'summer'