Separate lower ball joint 2007 Tahoe

Hey folks I've got a 2007 Tahoe 4WD. It's got a bad driver front wheel bearing and the old bearing is rusted so bad I need to remove the entire knuckle to press it out.

Any suggestions for separating the lower ball joint from the knuckle without destroying it with a pickle fork? Or is it possible to use the pickle fork and just replace the rubber boot afterwards? Have already tried beating on it with a sledge, hoping there's a separator tool out there that fits this application.

Thanks,

alex

All you can do is beat the living piss out of the knuckle with a 4lb sledge.

Before you wear yourself out doing that go on YouTube and look up stuck hub removal methods. One guy bought a 36" pipe wrench from Harbor freight and use the leverage of the length and beat on the end of the wrench and it pulled a stuck hub free.

Another guy knocked a few studs out and made pusher bolts to push the hub out from the back side.

Heat is your friend. Here in the land of sodium chloride, oxy-accetylene torches are never more than arm's length away. Propane and MAPP gas torches just don't apply sufficent heat to make a lot of difference.

Heat is your friend. Here in the land of sodium chloride, oxy-accetylene torches are never more than arm's length away. Propane and MAPP gas torches just don't apply sufficent heat to make a lot of difference.

Thanks for the replies guys. You were right Stealthee, turns out i just needed to beat on it harder with the sledge...deformed the little metal warts that stick out of the lower knuckle (I assume that's why they are there, however). I had earlier tried the pusher bolt method but there is no great surface for the pusher to really bear on. The wheel bearing flange is just completely rust welded to the knuckle so I'm skeptical that would have worked in my case regardless.

And Bowtie, I considered using oxy but my tank is empty right now; removing the knuckle was pretty easy (minus the lower balljoint obviously). So if pressing out the bearing doesn't go smoothly I'll run to the store and grab a refill.

Thanks!

[Edit] I also watched this video beforehand and he didn't have luck with the pipe wrench - since his hub and knuckle looked significantly less rusty than mine i figured i'd have to go all the way with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKcgXmX8oBo

On this subject, could someone please explain to me why the CV axle outboard end is bolted to the wheel bearing? The splined connection transmits the torque, and the inboard end is bolted to the diff flange, so it would seem to me that the "free" end should just be allowed to float within the splines?

Thanks,

Alex

The axle nut preloads the bearing. Without it the bearing would fail very quickly.

I would use a torch to heat up the aluminum use a ox/acc gas. set the torch for a flame to heat up the alum.. set up the two bolts to load it up to push the hub out then when the alum is hot spray cold water on the hub hole ...hub will shrink then pop . I have had to do many transportation work on using torch to remove rust parts .. GM did not put anti seize on the hub/alum contact. on my vehicles that are over 20 yrs I buy them new and I put anti seize on the rotor contact on the hub assy ...when new .. never had any problems falls off easy..