What's the best way to assemble tie rods and ball joint tapers? Clean and rust-free of course - but should there be a smear of 'never seize' or grease applied before they get squeezed together to make disassembly easier?? Oil? Moly? Graphite? I have been doing a lot of R&R of these in past weeks and some come apart easily; others need liberal doses of the FBH!

Sometimes the tapers are 'too' loose, allowing the BJ to spin in its taper before the nut is completely off - very frustrating!

What do you do?

Use Moly grease...............................to remove or tighten the nut when the shaft rotates you place a jack under the lower arm and apply a load to it (This is with the car on Stands, jack under the arm). This will be enough load to stop the shaft rotating.

I wouldnt use any grease as thtas what makes them slip

as per above if there still slipping with teh load applied then u can use a center punch a few times on thetaper surface to add a little grip but thats only a drastic measure

when yo have to remove the F B H is good and i havea brickies hammer square head works well

it took a 30 tonne press to take My ball joints out

a 10 tonne press wouldn't touch them...


but on the taper shaft I use lithium based Moly grease on them... [or never seize]

and use a jack to take the nuts off...
if they turn.. but as they are new they don't normally turn

ball joints and tie rod ends...

when i want to take them off..
I don't want any problems..

Lee