[colorado.e9x]

Who here has replaced their tension struts? I'll be attempting this tomorrow so any advice would be appreciated.

What I'm worried about is getting the ball joint out. I've soaked everything in PB a couple days ago, and will be repeating that process today.

Here are the techniques I've seen:

-PB from top down
-Loosely connect arm to ball joint, hammer on arm
-Find socket the same size as the top of the ball joint, hammer on that or extension going into socket
-Tie Rod End puller? @E92William

[tony55343]

Mine literally just came right out, hopefully you have the same luck I did!

[colorado.e9x]

Originally Posted by tony55343

Mine literally just came right out, hopefully you have the same luck I did!

I'm really hoping so!

[relative4]

Tie rod end puller works like a charm.

[colorado.e9x]

I had one on standby

I beat the arm with a hammer and it all popped out as one assembly fairly easily I even took the nut off from the arm to the balljoint prior lol. (The intention was to bang the arm off the joint)

[matteblue3er]

On xDrive, the ball joint is installed in to the knuckle, it is not pressed into the control arm like RWD models.

If you are replacing with OE busings, make sure you pre-load the bushings or they will fail pre-maturely.

If you do want to replace the ball joint, good luck. They are often seized from rust. The y are installed on a slight angle so its very difficult to get an air hammer or even a hammer/lunch tool on the ball joint to knock out. Most of the time, I need to remove the knuckle from the car so I can get the proper angle/force behind the ball joint to pop it out.

[colorado.e9x]

Originally Posted by matteblue3er

On xDrive, the ball joint is installed in to the knuckle, it is not pressed into the control arm like RWD models.

If you are replacing with OE busings, make sure you pre-load the bushings or they will fail pre-maturely.

If you do want to replace the ball joint, good luck. They are often seized from rust. The y are installed on a slight angle so its very difficult to get an air hammer or even a hammer/lunch tool on the ball joint to knock out. Most of the time, I need to remove the knuckle from the car so I can get the proper angle/force behind the ball joint to pop it out.

This is real good info for anyone doing this in the future. I already had new (used) arms with M3 bushings pressed in so alls I needed to do was R&R. Like I said above the ball joint was rust welded to the arm. With the ball joint nut off I hit the arm with a hammer a good dozen times to separate it from the ball joint. What ended up happening was the ball joint popped out of the knuckle with the arm. This worked perfectly for me since I was replacing both of them either way. It helps to mention I soaked the ball joint from the top with PB blaster every day during the week leading up to the project. Put copper anti-seize on all mating surfaces so it should be good for next time. And yes everything was preloaded before torque 🤙🏼