I have a 1995 Blazer LT 3 button 4X4 with the 4.3 L CPI engine and it has 165,000 miles. I started to get a rattle with a thud on bumpy roads. When I looked at the suspension it looked like it needed new inside tie rod ends and ball joints. Lucky me the ball joints are stock and still have the factory rivets holding them on.

There are a lot of threads on here with some great tips on these ball joints. I figured I would post a do it yourself guide with pictures to go with some of the other posts on here.

I read about several different suspension components and MOOG and AC Delco seemed to be the consensus for the best brands. I went with the Duralast from AutoZone. They were about $30 for each ball joint and about $20 for the inner tie rod ends. I will look at the receipts later and put the real prices in there.

All of the wrench sizes were for the original parts and the Duralast nuts were slightly different. I did the first one on the driver side and learned a lot from that. I thought I would put together some instructions and pictures with the passenger side. If you have any suggestions on editing or other suggestions, please feel free to add them.

The first step is to gather up the necessary tools and parts. The tools you will need are: good size hammer, pickle fork, 36mm hub socket, torque wrench, drill, and various sockets/wrenches.

Second step is to block both the back tires and break loose the lugs and the axle bolt.




Raise the truck with the jack and put a jack stand under the frame. This is extremely important to get it good and stable. We are going to be banging stuff with hammers hard and often.


Remove the tire and take off the brake caliper. My Blazer needs a 3/8 inch allen to take off the caliper pins.



Attach the brakes to the frame with some ties or my favorite, duct tape.



Use the 36 mm hub socket and take out the axle bolt, and remove the brake rotor.


On the back of the steering knuckle there are three 18 mm bolts that hold on the wheel bearing and hub assembly.



Use a punch and give the axle a few taps to back it out of the steering knuckle. I like to hold everything that I am going to hit hard with a wrench, nothing makes this an easy job and smacking my hand with a hammer would not help.




The top ball joint is the first one that we are going to remove. If you are lucky enough to have the job of replacing the original ball joints, you will need to remove the rivets holding them on. This is the method that I found worked the best. I did the driver side ball joints first and tried a few things that didn’t work. This is the way I recommend doing it with ordinary tools.

The Haynes manual says to drill a hole straight down into the rivet with 1/8 inch drill bit as a pilot hole. Then use either a ÂĽ inch bit or a 5/16 inch bit. You will want to drill down past the depth of the rivet head.


Next take hold of the chisel with your pliers and pound away to shear off the rivet head. If you drilled the holes deep enough into the shaft of the rivet, it is a nice hole to keep the punch where it needs to be.



Once all of the rivets are pounded out, we are ready to separate the top ball joint from the steering knuckle. Take out the cotter pin and use a 22 mm wrench to take the nut off. Place the pickle fork between the knuckle and the ball joint. Be careful, because when it is separated it will drop several inches. Pound away until the fork forces it apart.



Next we want to remove the steering knuckle so we can get to the lower ball joint easier. I needed to replace the inner tie rods so it was an easy choice for me to take them off. Take out the cotter pin and use an 18 mm wrench to take the nut off the tie rod end. Since I am not too worried about damaging the rubber boot, I will just use the pickle fork and separate it.



Next we need to separate the lower ball joint from the knuckle. Take out the cotter pin and use a 24 mm wrench to get the nut off. Use the pickle fork and smack away at it.




Set the knuckle and tie rod of to the side where you won’t get it dirty. I used a bungee to get the cv joint and axle out of the way.



Now you can see the lower ball joint perfectly and you can get your drill into the rivets. Use the same procedure as the top and pre drill with the 1/8 and then use the 5/16 bit. Then use the punch and knock out rivets. I got lucky and only needed to punch out two rivets.



Now I am replacing the inner tie rod. I measured how far the tie rod was screwed in so it would be about where it needed to be. I measured 68 mm.



It turned out that I needed to use a breaker bar to get the tie rod off so I attached the lower ball joint first.




Breaker bar on tie rod.




Put the axel through the steering knuckle and reassemble the bearing and hub assembly. Before you put the shield back on clean off the magnetic ABS sensor. At least that’s what I think this is.



Use the jack to raise the lower assembly arm and line up the hole in the knuckle with the upper ball joint.



Please remember that every joint in the steering assembly needs to be pumped with some grease. Use the grease gun and don’t fill it up too much.




Put everything else back on the way you took it off.

Thanks for reading, I hope that it will save you some time.

edited because the paragraphs were messed up

Factory Ball Joint Replacement - Article

*EDIT by swartlkk* - Added link to the actual article.

 

good post nice pics

 

Thanks, it was tough not to get the camera all greasy.

 

Good write-up and pics. Looks like I'll be doing this to both my Blazers shortly plus replacing the idler arm on my 97.

 

Very good article. Thank you. I have copied your initial post into the Tech Articles (DIY) section and added the appropriate links. Any modifications that may be required for this article will be discussed in this thread.

 

You will be a pro at replacing these things after doing two of them. If they are factory and have the rivets, don't get discouraged after the first one. The first one took me a couple hours the first day and a few more the second. It was filled with plenty of four letter words, but the passenger side took 2 hours and no swearing.

I also want to thank my wife since I did this on Valentine's Day and she was cooking the whole time.

Thanks, I just wanted to add to the forum. I have been helped with so many things, the forum makes the DIYer in me come out.

 

Get yourself an air compressor and an air hammer and your repair time will be DRASTICALLY reduced!

 

does this also apply for a 91 4x4?

 

I have only had my 95 Blazer for a couple months now, and I do not know about the 91. I have a feeling that the design on the ball joints didn't change all that much between the 1st and 2nd series, but I would take off the tire and take a look. If it looks similar to the pictures I am pretty sure you would be able to figure it out.

Anybody, is it the same?

 

I would loved to have had a compressor and air hammer on some of those, it probably would have saved about 30-45 minutes for sure. The rivets are definitely the worst part of it, but the pickle fork part is easy. Once the rivets are pre-drilled it is a pretty easy task to get them off.

Some tips to chiseling them off by hand that I forgot. Obviously use some safety glasses, those rivet heads go flying when you knock them off. Also you want to have a little bit of an angle with the cold chisel, maybe about 15 or 20 degrees from horizontal. If it is too angled you will start to catch some of the metal on the assembly arm and if you go with not enough angle you will not shear off the whole rivet head. If you leave some rivet head you will need to use a steeper angle with the chisel and potentially damage the arm.

If you look closely at the picture of the lower ball joint picture where the first rivet head is gone and the other three are pre-drilled, you can see that I started with a bit too steep of an angle and I took off some of the paint on the arm. OOPS!