removing a ball stud, mildly frustrating....

I'm trying to knock this damn ball stud from each steering arm on my 56 Chevy pickup. I've drilled a hole through the center and have been wailing on it with a punch and 2 lbs sledge and it's hardly budged. Should I be using heat to loosen things up?

 

Here's a quote from the Stovebolt site
"I just remove the ball stud on my pitman arm yesterday. I ground down the peened end flush with pitman arm, but no amount of pounding would get the stud to start moving. I drilled out the center of the stud with a 3/8" drill bit, still no go. I then chamfered the ground down end of the stud (around the hole I drilled) with my dremel tool. Bingo, the stud easily came out. Both ends of the hole in the pitman arm were chamfered by the factory (the peened side more so than the ball side)."

also..Here is another link to a discussion
http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/tie_rod_replacement.html

Hope it helps.

 

Been there done that. The swage on the back is huge... I snuck up on it in a machining center to find out how big. Use a countersink to get all of it out as shown.

 

thanks for the tips guys. I'll get back at it after work tonight. It held me up on any further progress yesterday

 

All it took was a little heat from the torch and a couple taps and they both came out last night. Then I let them air cool all night. Tonight.....I ***emble a front end

 

Good you got it. My post could have been a bit more helpful if I mentioned that plunging in with a 90 deg countersink until the spotface diameter equals 3/4" will remove all the swage. (after drilling of course)

The chamfer in the middle photo is from the factory and not by me to see exactly how big it is.