I have a 97 4x4 blazer, and I'm in the middle of replacing my ball joints. The upper BJ was no problem. I have the steering knucle removed and drive axle out of the way. I drilled through the 4 rivets, knocked theheads off with a coldchisel,butIcantpush the rivetsout orthe d*@#ball joint. I'm stuck and dont know what to do. please help, i want to get this done asap, its my spring break and i dont want to use it all on replacing my ball joints.

 

What size drill bit did you use to drill "through" the rivots with and if you drilled all the way through then you drilled to far. You only need to drill enough to get the heads off...then you use a punch and hammer to drive out the rivots...I believe the ball joint housing is on the top of the lower control arm if you can try to get some thing between the housing and the control arm to get the ball joint off the rivots.

If you drilled the rivots smaller then you should find a drift punch slightly smaller than the size of the rivots and pound hard...if you can use an air chisel with a driver head then that would be easier...but a big hammer and punch should work it did for me...

 

Problem that I ran into on my lower balljoints is that all of the holes were not exactly centered over each other. So when the rivet was installed, the misaligned holes caused a step in the rivet making it an absolute bear to get out.

As Mark stated already, get the hammer and pound away!

 

alright, i guess i'll just continue to slug away at them. thanks.