Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Does anyone have any good tips or tricks to remove the grease cups from the front lower suspension. I am having a ridiculously terrible time trying to get them off! And they aren't even that rusted!

Thanks!

The knuckle has a little cog on it. Remove the cotter pin, remove the nut, apply inward pressure with a pickle fork and smack the cog with a medium sized hammer. (Sorry Tom). Shocking the joint will make it pop.
If you are replacing the ball joint boots, leave the nut on about 4-5 threads. No pickle fork required, the coil spring will induce enough pressure to seperate the joint. The nut will act as a stop. Dont wanna chip a toothy.

norgebe91 wrote:Does anyone have any good tips or tricks to remove the grease cups from the front lower suspension. I am having a ridiculously terrible time trying to get them off! And they aren't even that rusted!

Thanks!

Are you talking about the caps on the end of the lower spindle arm? The spindle arm bolts to the frame and has two side pieces which help form the lower A arm. If so the end caps which should have a zerk fitting are very difficult to remove. I use an impact wrench on mine.

Curtis wrote:

norgebe91 wrote:Does anyone have any good tips or tricks to remove the grease cups from the front lower suspension. I am having a ridiculously terrible time trying to get them off! And they aren't even that rusted!

Thanks!

Are you talking about the caps on the end of the lower spindle arm? The spindle arm bolts to the frame and has two side pieces which help form the lower A arm. If so the end caps which should have a zerk fitting are very difficult to remove. I use an impact wrench on mine.

Curtis is underestimating the effort! They are very (insert you own adjective) difficult to remove. I took mine off 10 years ago with a 1" socket set and a 4 foot breaker bar. Probably took 800-900 ft-lbs of torque to crack them. Not doing that again.

garth wrote:

Curtis wrote:

norgebe91 wrote:Does anyone have any good tips or tricks to remove the grease cups from the front lower suspension. I am having a ridiculously terrible time trying to get them off! And they aren't even that rusted!

Thanks!

Are you talking about the caps on the end of the lower spindle arm? The spindle arm bolts to the frame and has two side pieces which help form the lower A arm. If so the end caps which should have a zerk fitting are very difficult to remove. I use an impact wrench on mine.

Curtis is underestimating the effort! They are very (insert you own adjective) difficult to remove. I took mine off 10 years ago with a 1" socket set and a 4 foot breaker bar. Probably took 800-900 ft-lbs of torque to crack them. Not doing that again.

Nope, not underestimating. I pounded it off with the impact wrench. I didn't have anything around to use as a giant breaker bar and frankly I didn't want to. I let air do the work for me.

Probably the one of the biggest PITA on the car. I'd almost rather do anything else on the car, or at least until I start doing it and then complain about that.

Curtis wrote:

garth wrote:

Curtis wrote:I'd almost rather do anything else on the car

Like changing out the dash bulbs on a high windshield car?

Thanks Curtis and Garth, i am talking about the grease cups on the lower arms.

I was worried about using the an impact gun on them, and had kind of thrown that idea out the window for fear of messing up those threads! But if ya'll have used an impact, or just a huge breaker bar without messing them up. I guess i'll try that!

It's seriously a PITA......but it needs to be done. Thanks for the ideas!!

I used a pipe on my breaker bar to "cheat" (about 3 -3.5 ft) to get mine off.
I remember my bench with the vice on wanted to tip over, but they finally came off. They are only torqued to about 180 ft lbs IIRC, so add another 100 or so for stiction and 100 for a wee bit of rust say 380. So get ready for 130 lbs of force at three feet. Although an impact wrench is cheating.

msampsel wrote:I used a pipe on my breaker bar to "cheat" (about 3 -3.5 ft) to get mine off.
I remember my bench with the vice on wanted to tip over, but they finally came off. They are only torqued to about 180 ft lbs IIRC, so add another 100 or so for stiction and 100 for a wee bit of rust say 380. So get ready for 130 lbs of force at three feet. Although an impact wrench is cheating.

An impact wrench is smart for old guys that don't want hurt them self.

Impact wrench wouldn't budge the lowers on mine (made short work of the uppers though), wound up having to use a 4' cheater on a 26" breaker bar to finally get them loose.

From an old plumber, a 36" pipe wrench (made for up to 3" pipe / fittings) or even a 48" pipe wrench (for up to 4") made pretty quick work of breaking them loose for me - "them" being the lower a-arm bushings which is what the thread seems to be about?? Just had to make sure I didn't wrench the car off the jack stands when I was doing it though.