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Steering Arm Removal

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1HighK5

1/2 ton status
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Feb 7, 2005
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New York
Can anyone tell me the best way to get the old steering arm off my D44 so I can put the new taller one on. I tried putting liquid wrench on it for like a week and a half with no luck. I have also tried heating it but didn't really get it too hot cuz I don't wanna mess up the ball joint. Can anyone gimme somthing else to try or trick or somthing. It's holding up the works! Thanks John
 
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i used a 3 pound sled and beat it up and then down repeatedly and it poped right off. but then again i had my axle out of my rig and i was really able to get a good swing on it.
 
Hit it from the side really hard till you think that your are hitting it to hard then hit it some more and the washers should work themselves up and loose.
 
can you get the bolts off? what i do is use a 4 ft pipe, a craftsman breaker bar and a impact socket, that way if i braek the bar i can return it :D works every time, that amount of leverage just pulls thos nuts right around! as for the arm itself, see if you can get a jack just on the end of it, if you can jack the truck up on the tip of the arm and see if that loosens it, if the truck comes more than a few inches up off the ground and no luck then dont go any farther, you dont need a truck falling on you!
 
It took me awhile to figure it out on my 88. After about 3 hours and nothing working someone told me the secret was to find the numbers that were stampped on top of the arm and take a 3lb hammer and hit it directly on the numbers. 3 hits and the cones popped up and arm popped off.

Good luck
 
i did this 2 weeks ago. after swinging a 3 lbs sledge for 30 minutes, i searched for my 4 lbs sledge (i was actually looking for my 15 lbs slege and found my 4 lbs that i wanted in the first place) like 5 swings with the 4 lb, i noticed that one cone washer moved. :eek: a few more swings and all 3 were off.

moral of the story, get a bigger hammer :grin:

i had the axle out of the truck also, gives you more swing.

also i hit right in the crest of the arm, only down.
 
Step 1. Get mad
step 2. find large blunt metal object
Step 3. Beat the freakin daylights out of it.
Step 4. Repeat until whole unit comes off.
 
:D :D :D This sucks!!! I can only smile cause I was beating on that thing for days thinking that I was doing something wrong. Some people said to try to stick something in the slit of the cone washers and hit down hard on that in order to force the cone washers further open which would get them loose and on their way out (in theory) - I broke some stuff using that approach and mangled the washer.

The heat thing, yeah give it a try why not. At the end of the day you are going to have to do everything short of a mystikal steering arm removal dance to get it off (there is a lot of voodoo involved). Hit it on the numbers, hit it from underneath, hit it from the sides, hit it anywhere you can, but don't give up!!! You really have to beat that thing harder than you thought possible. Good Luck!
 
I'm laughing my @$$ off and feel your pain, My two cents is buy a BFH from sears so you can take it back when you break the handle off of it that's how hard you need to hit it
 
oh man this was the absolute most horrible part of putting my lift on, i wanted to kill someone, took about 2weeks of hitting w/ a 3lb hammer then my friend came over w/ his oxy torch and torched the sob off. The big thing is those conical washers. They are sooo tightly packed in there, you should try to find where the washer thing splits and try to make it spin with a punch and hammer. These washers suck cuz they go down around the stud into the steering arm. Goodluck!
 
But you gotta love the fact that this is THE way to get it off!! Its not the wrong way or means somethings wrong that you need to beat the hell outta it. I spent a couple hours beating with the 2 pounder. Then got the 4 pounder and started taking full swings with both arms...and FINALLY!! This was on my 81 a few years back. This weekend I will tackle my 73 K20. Should be fun. RIGHT!!! :haha:
 
The up/down hitting is what worked for me. Seemed counter intuitive to hit it down, but that made all the difference. I beat on that thing up for 3 hours and it never moved.
 
the way I did it was i took the knuckle or watever its called off the axle, then I carfully welded the bolt to the cone washer and just unscrewed it out. It was that easy. i tried to hit it out before but only one of the cone washers came out...but after welding the bolt to the washer it was just a matter of unscrewing it out.
 
this is why cone washers are the devil. I hate the things. I understand what they do, but my D60 arm stays on juuuust fine and it doesn't have a single cone washer on it. My toy buggy axles have them on the steering arm AND the hubs. good grief they are a PITA. Its pretty much my goal to eliminate their use on any axle I have, but every time I say something about "why even use them at all? they are a real PITA!" over on the pirate toyota thread and I get is stunned silence in return... as if I'm either crazy for wanting to get rid of them or there are no other options. bah!

j
 
Well thank you everyone for given me all the advice I forgot to mention that the axle is out of the truck and YES I will beat on it with my 5 LB lump hammer My favorite tool of my whole garage. But now I have a new problem I had just gotten the D44 a couple weeks ago for an easy 150 dollars and its in real good shape, It also beats the heck out of paying a GRAND for a D60 but now I found a guy with two D60's for 500 bucks each with the gears I want and all and he said he might even be able to do better on it I want it but now I gotta get rid of my D44 first O well
 
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