Ok... going through a similar thing myself right now.... ARG! i'll post the story (because holy hell, it's a good one) somewhere else. But! here is what i'm doing.. After pulling the ENTIRE strut assembly and knocking out the first ball joint (and cracking the cast steering knuckle in the process) my brother came up with an ingenious puller design. A piece of 3x3 square tube with two holes cut in it (with an O2/ace torch). One just large enough to fit around the ball joint housing and another to pass te bolt end through. Catching the castle nut on the outside and using it to wrench out the Ball joint. This, after much PB blaster torching and Bees wax.
One shouldn't have to remove the strut assm. for such a tool to work and I'm wishing i'd thought of rapping on the lower control arm myself... but in my case i'm not even sure that would have worked....
I'll be happy to answer more but you should really find this story when i post it.
Ok... going through a similar thing myself right now.... ARG! i'll post the story (because holy hell, it's a good one) somewhere else. But! here is what i'm doing.. After pulling the ENTIRE strut assembly and knocking out the first ball joint (and cracking the cast steering knuckle in the process) my brother came up with an ingenious puller design. A piece of 3x3 square tube with two holes cut in it (with an O2/ace torch). One just large enough to fit around the ball joint housing and another to pass te bolt end through. Catching the castle nut on the outside and using it to wrench out the Ball joint. This, after much PB blaster torching and Bees wax. One shouldn't have to remove the strut assm. for such a tool to work and I'm wishing i'd thought of rapping on the lower control arm myself... but in my case i'm not even sure that would have worked.... I'll be happy to answer more but you should really find this story when i post it.