help with stuck ball joint sleeve

[DESTRO]

Hello,
Anybody got any tips or tricks to get a dana 44's ball joint adjusting sleeve unstuck?
It's a 77 and it looks like their the original ball joints and I live in the rust belt.
Please share how you got yours out.
Thanks

[special-K]

Press...may need heat to break rust.

[OLDCHEV4X4]

The upper ball joint adjusting sleeve?
Do you have the special adjusting sleeve spanner socket?

[Blazer1970]

You do need to separate the ball joints from the knuckle before you remove that sleeve. That may be what you are doing, but I have seen people try to turn the adjusting sleeve out with the ball joint still stuck in the taper and you will never budge it then. Usually once the ball joint is out the sleeve turns out easily since it is slit all the way down one side.

[DESTRO]

Well I guess I should of given alittle more back story.
I have the entire front tore down ,ball joints out and the knuckle on the bench.The adjusting sleeve is the only thing left to remove.It's super stuck.
The spanner is useless,It just keeps popping out. Tried knocking it around with an air hammer. Heating it with propane. PB blasted it. Even tried melting some wax. No dice on any of it.
Had the wife get me some Mapp gas today.Might try to heat it up and try to air hammer it in on it's self. Gonna be a couple days till I get to it so hopefully I get some good ideas. Did I mention, I think these are the 30+ year old originals??
They are kicking my butt.....PLEASE HELP

[OLDCHEV4X4]

Can you get a oxy/acetylene torch? Heat the knuckle, not the sleeve. Pb blaster. Try and turn it with a punch and hammer. The air chizzle sounds like it would booger up the threads.

[HotRodYJ]

I've had to break them out before with a chisel then just install new ones. Just be careful not to damage the threads.

[DESTRO]

Originally Posted by HotRodYJ

I've had to break them out before with a chisel then just install new ones.

I was thinking about doing that. I'm in the middle of hunting up some fire wrenches.Atleast this downtime is giving me time to paint the parts I took off.

I am grateful of all previous tips and hope to get some more.Hopefully those torches come buy this weekend.

[Burt4x4]

One thing I did was held the spanner socket down w/clamp (duct tape on tight works) and then a long braker bar w/jack handel and stand up and push/pull, the clamp held the tits into the slots....errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr it came out
good luck

[DESTRO]

Originally Posted by Burt4x4

One thing I did was held the spanner socket down w/clamp

I actually tried that with a C-clamp to no avail.
Well I got that sucker out. Had a friend come over with torches.he's done plenty of these in the past and said that he's never seen one this stuck before.
Here's a trick I'd like to pass on....If it's stuck,find the slit in the sleeve and directly across it on the raised nub drill a small hole down thru the sleeve.With either a small chisel or a steady hand with the fire wrench,cut down the edge of the hole.Now you have 2 halves.Tap the one half in and it will loosen up.Carefully wiggle out the half.Sometimes heating the edges and curling in the edge will help fish it out.
Hopefully this helps someone out...I know it helped me.

[OLDCHEV4X4]

Do you need to chase the thread? Or is good to go.

[DESTRO]

Originally Posted by OLDCHEV4X4

Do you need to chase the thread? Or is good to go.

Yeah,I had to chase it.Not from what I did but the 1st thread was collapsed.

It's a 1-1/8 x 12 tap if anyone was interested.