Removing left-upper 4x4 ball joint without removing steering arm?

[joeydurango]

Doing ball joints (and bearings, and hub/spindle seals, and axle shaft seals, and on ad nauseum) on my K10. First time at this, but no problems... until I got to the last ball joint, the driver-side upper. The tool doesn't fit between the steering arm and the ball joint, so the steering arm has to come off. So far, that ain't happenin'. I have tried copious amounts of PB Blaster (otherwise known as the brain-cell killer), SeeTen's socket trick, and of course a BFH.

So I began thinking (always dangerous, I know) - work smarter, not harder. Instead of beating the crap out of the steering arm with a sledge, how else could I press out the joint? The immediate and easiest idea is to modify the receiving tube on the press to be a "C" shape, cut out where the steering arm is in the way. But that leaves me with a very expensive adapter kit that I'd prefer to return to Autozone.

I wondered if any of you have ever come up with a good solution. Removing the steering arm just to press out a ball joint seems like a waste of time and energy. All you really need is some strong, U-shaped piece of metal to act as a partial receiver tube for the joint. I'll keep working on a (cheap) method, but if anyone's got an idea or done this before, say the word.