How to Replace Front Lower Ball Joint 2006-11 Honda Civic
Created on: 2018-02-01
New Ball Joint from 1AAuto.com How to repair, install, fix, change or replace loose, worn, or creaking ball joints on 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11 Honda Civic
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step 1 :Removing the Wheel
- Loosen the lug nuts with a 19mm socket
- Loosen the lug nuts with the vehicle on the ground
- Raise the vehicle with a floor jack
- Secure the vehicle on jack stands
- Remove the lug nuts
- Pull off the wheel
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step 2 :Removing the Ball Joint
- Pull the knuckle toward you
- Straighten the cotter pin
- Remove the cotter pin from the castle nut
- Loosen the nut with a 19mm wrench and dead blow mallet if needed
- Remove the ball joint with a ball joint separator, ratchet, and socket
- Remove the castle nut
- Remove the ball joint from the lower control arm with a pry bar
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step 3 :Installing the Ball Joint
- Clean the surface of the lower control arm
- Insert the ball joint into the knuckle
- Hand-tighten the castle nut
- Maneuver the ball joint into the control arm
- Tighten the bolts to the ball joint with a 17mm socket and ratchet
- Torque the three lower nuts to 43 foot-pounds
- Tighten the castle nut with a 22mm wrench
- Insert the cotter pin
- Bend the ends of the cotter pin
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step 4 :Reattaching the Wheel
- Slide the wheel into place
- Start the lug nuts by hand
- Tighten the lug nuts preliminarily
- Lower the vehicle to the ground
- Tighten the lug nuts to 80 foot-pounds in a crossing or star pattern
- Reattach the center cap
- Tighten the lug nut covers with a 22mm socket
Tools needed
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Socket Extensions
Torque Wrench
Rust Penetrant
Pry Bar
Paper Towels
Jack Stands
Complete Metric Wrench Set
Ratchet
Floor Jack
Needle nose pliers
1/2 Inch Breaker Bar
Complete Metric Socket Set
Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!
Turn the knuckle out a little bit this way until we see the ball joint. Remove the cotter pin using some needle nose pliers. Pop the little part up and over—that should come right out. Let's spray some rust penetrant on it to help it move. Take your 19mm box wrench.
This is really hard to move, so I'm going to use the dead blow mallet and hit the wrench. Try to break it free. This is on here pretty tight. I tried hitting it with the dead blow, but it didn't work, so we're going to use a cheater bar here. You could just use a piece of pipe. Going to put it over the wrench and give you extra leverage. Sometimes you loosen it too far and then you can't get your box wrench out, so I'm just going to tighten it back up a little bit. And once I can get my box wrench out, now we take the open-ended part and continue to loosen in. That will have to come off, with it loosened, so what we're going to do is thread it back down but not all the way. Then I'll start loosening these bolts under here.
I'll just spray some rust penetrant on the bolt that's right here, that's holding the ball joint in and on the two nuts. I have a 17mm socket and extension and a long breaker bar to get these free. That one's loose. Get this one loose. I've got those loose. I'm going to switch to a ratchet. Now, I'm just taking them out.
I'm going to use a ball joint separator and slide it in here. Get it in place. Use the appropriate sized socket for yours—this one is a 15/16ths. Going to tighten it and it will pop the ball joint down. Break free with a snap. Remove this nut the rest of the way. Now I can get the nut off that it's slid down. This ball joint is loose. It's also loose here in the arm. Going to use some pry bars to just pry down on the arm and pop the ball joint out of the lower control arm. And just, the whole strut is holding the brake, knuckle, and axle assembly. I just reach up here and just pop this down, and that should slide right out of there.
This is our original ball joint that came out of the vehicle. Here’s a brand new one from 1AAuto.com. See the same style ball joint. A new one comes with a new castle nut, and also comes with some new nuts for underneath and a new bolt and a new cotter pin. They're the same style ball joint. This one is marked L for left. This should fit great and work great in your vehicle.
I'm just going to wipe some dirt off the top of the control arm right here. A little bit of the grease off the bottom of the knuckle. Don't have to go crazy, just some of the big chunks, get them out of there. Take the ball joint and get it up in here. Now, I'll take the castle nut and just sort of capture it, just so the ball joint doesn't fall out. Now, I can pull down, and push this out a little bit. I just kind of maneuvered it up into here. I'm just going to give it a little push, get it into place, use the pry bar to kind of readjust it, and just push it home with my hand. I'll get these two nuts caught so it doesn't pop back out. There's a new washer that came with this one.
Reinstall that with the bolt. Thread them in by hand, but don't cross-thread. Now I'm just going to snug these down and come back and torque them afterwards, but in the meantime, get them nice and even.
I want to torque these, starting with this nut here, then the rear nut, then the bolt. Torquing these to 43 foot-pounds. I'll turn this back out so I can see the nut and already getting tight. The placement nut is at 21mm. Use the open-ended part of the wrench to tighten. There is a torque for these, it's very difficult to get a torque wrench in here so I'm just going to tighten it nice and tight because it will have the cotter pin to hold it.
Almost there where the opening is free for the cotter pin. So, right there, I can go straight through with the cotter pin now. Right through here. Grab the cotter pin with my fingers and bend it up now. Sometimes you might need to use pliers. This one's long enough I can do it with my fingers. These go down that way, go down that way. Cotter pin is installed. The ball joint is replaced.
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