Hey guys, I have a 2001 Montero Sport and recently the front right suspension has been squeaking and creaking quite a bit. I was able to replace the front right upper ball joint fairly easily. But the squeaking and creaking has not went away, so I now have the front right lower ball joint to replace hoping to put an end to the noise.

So currently I have the front of the vehicle on jack stands, tire removed and the front right lower control arm supported. I have the castle nut of the front right lower ball joint loosened but not all the way off (hopefully to prevent lower control arm from dropping). I have a small 3 lb hammer and a pickle fork but not having much luck getting the lower ball joint separated. I may go pick up a ball joint separator from harbor freight and give that a try. But I wanted to make sure I don't have to separate any other components (upper ball joint or tie rod) as part of this job.

Anyone have any experience or advice on removing the front right lower ball joints on a 2WD montero sport?

I also would like to know what needs greasing. I see that upper and lower ball joints and tie rod ends have grease fittings. What about the idler arm? I see a small bolt on the top of it like it may be where a grease fitting is supposed to go but unsure if that's its purpose or not.

Thanks in advance!

 

I was able to complete the job. A few things to note:

I removed the entire wheel hub to remove the lower ball joint. There does not seem to be any shortcuts to this job. Remove brake caliper, tie rod and upper ball joint connections, and the 4 bolts holding the lower ball joint and the whole hub comes off. Then you can easily pop off the old ball joint.

When removing ball joints, loosen the castle nuts but do not remove them. That way when you separate them, they dont pop off uncontrolled and unpredictable.

During the process, I greased all the fittings I could find on that side of the vehicle: upper and lower ball joint, outer and inner tie rod.

Someone suggested loosening the torsion bar, at the rear connection under the back seats. I did that but dont know if it helped at all. When putting everything back together, I had the lower ball joint bolted in place but the upper ball joint was still a few inches too high. So I ended up jacking up the lower control arm to get it up high enough.

I read somewhere else that you need to tighten the lower ball joint with weight on it, which i dont know how that can be done. I tightened the hell out of it while it was jacked up. I dont know how that would be even possible with a tire on.

took me about 4 hours to do the job. Any safety issues I should consider after completing this job?