Hey all, been a while since I did any work on my project, and then today I went and messed up my power steering control valve pretty bad with a ball-joint separator tool.
I was separating the pitman arm from the control valve, didn’t realize where the other ends of the tool were at, and unfortunately gouged the hell out of the outside of this, which pushed material inside the housing and so the copper sleeve that holds the ball stud no longer fits or moves freely within. These don’t seem easy to come by without just buying a whole new control valve so I was hoping someone had a busted/spare control valve that I could get this part off of.
I’m located in Los Angeles California, I can be contacted through a private message here or at austinspencer.36@gmail.com. Thanks!
Yeah I’m learning that the hard way, but I’ll look into another style of separator, especially since my ball stud is still stuck in the pitman arm anyway. Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll see if he’s got what I’m looking for!
This is the style tool I’ve used without damaging the control valve. Got it from JC Whitney about 30 years ago.
Powerbuilt 940424, available from Summit or Amazon.
I agree, I wouldn’t use my tool for ball joints. It works fine for the power steering stud. With several 12" extensions, it can be accessed from the top side of the motor. I put a flat mushroom style spacer on the end of the bolt (from another puller set) to provide more surface area to push with and to protect the stud.
The spacer is similar to this one:
I loosen the nut on the control valve ball stud to the point it creates a cup at the end of the stud, then i use a tie rod end puller and access it with extensions from above.
You have to seat the part in the bottom of the recess. Putting pressure on the tip will over stress it and break it. I have a broken one that looks just like that.
