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coffin arm ball joint splitter

S

Shalmaneser

Montreal
Joined
11 Nov 2019
Messages
536
Hi all,

I'm in the enviable position of looking after two Porsches (996 His n 987 Hers) both of which require coffin arm replacements.

Given the amount of time I anticipate lying on my back doing this work I'd like to buy a decent ball joint splitter. However I'm aware that space is tight so not all versions will work, and on top of that I'm sure some versions are a bit rubbish.

Does anyone have any recommendations for me before I start buying things at random off the internet?

Thanks all!

Adam
 
Try a hammer and if that doesn't work try 2 hammers.

With 1 hammer hit the coffin arm sideways rather than hitting the balljoint from above.

Other method which I learned recently is to stick a hammer at one side of the joint and hit the other side with a second hammer (so you hit the hub/socket the ball joint goes through). Theory being this breaks the seal.

I know this isn't quite what you asked for but I've always found pickle folks useless and ball joint splitters not much better on cars of a certain vintage.
 
Blow torch. I snapped some pretty heavy duty ball joint splinters doing it cold.
 
I've done a fair amount of hammering off ball joints in my time but generally not with aluminium carriers, which I'd be a bit wary of damaging with the old Metal Correcting Stick.

I've never used a pickle fork and remain fairly suspicious of them. Was thinking of something like this:

7E8CEF96-D5A9-4100-A7E7-0CD2CB4D890E-huge.jpg


And wondered if anyone had used one that they knew fitted and didn't snap!

Blowtorch a good shout though.

This Porsche tech has a good one by the looks of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBsS4FWM6Oc&t=200s
 
It's hard work getting a ball joint splitter in there on the coffin arms and is frustrating.

I did mine with a pickle fork first for the front but for the rears I got the nut off, got plenty of penitrating fluid inside then the nut back on a bit and hit them with a club hammer and they popped out after a few goes.

The biggest issue would be if the eccentric bolts have got fused into the bushes then your into some cutting action. I used a scorpion black and decker for my rear ones with a metal cutting blade to get them out.
 
Do Not use the tuning fork type that you beat with a hammer .. these can often damage the rubber boot ... fine if you are replacing the coffin arm but for general work then not very useful .

I use a snap on one but most of these are similar .

Spray the rubber boot with something like wd 40 before fitting the ball joint remover .. it helps .
 
I use a pickle fork and it destroys the old boots every time. This isn't a problem as the old parts are going in the bin anyway. I would be a little wary of using heat as you run the risk of the ali upright expanding more than the steel collar that the conical part of the ball joint inserts into and the collar coming out of the upright still stuck to the bit you're actually trying to remove.
 
I have used one of the above pictured BJ splitters with success for a few year but it broke last year and all I could get at the time was a tuning fork type, it did the job (eventually) but I was wincing at hitting it so hard, the boots also got destroyed but I was replacing the arms anyway.
 
I've got an old one very similar to your picture, Halfords I think.
It didn't quite locate fully but managed to pop the ball joints with ease.

I needed to pop the ball joints on my missus old 100k CRV, 2 or 3 whacks with a hammer was all it took, that never happens with a 996.
 
This is the one I mentioned above and used with great success and no damage to the balljoint rubber boots thanks to the wider jaw on this particular model.

0EG5mNr.jpg
 
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