A pitman arm puller works great for pulling the ball joints & tie rods (& pitman arm ) on the VX. Takes a couples minutes per joint once in place. I paid around $10 at O'Reillys for my pitman arm puller a few years ago and have used it countless times. In fact, I don't take off for a trail run without it!



To replace the upper (UBJ) & lower ball joints (LBJ)...
1. Remove front tires and support everything with jackstands
2. Remove castle nut on LBJ and place puller on balljoint.
3. Tighten down puller. Once tight, tap hammer on ball joint every turn until it pops free.
4. Loosen 4 bolts for LBJ and remove assembly
5. Remove axle hub and snap ring for half-shaft
6. Pull spindle out and up until half shaft splines are pulled out of hub. Move half-shaft to the side
7. Install lower ball joint on Spindle, install 1-2 bolts on control arm and hand tighten. Doing this keeps the spindle in place when you remove the UBJ. You may need to jack up lower control arm to place LBJ for bolts.
7. With half-shaft out of the way, you can place puller on UBJ. Follow step #2&3 for procedure.
8. Install new UBJ, Remove bolts for LBJ, fit half-shaft back in hub and install all bolts for LBJ.
9. Repeat for other side.

It's really not difficult... If you have access to a decent set of tools, the job should only take a couple hours for all 4 ball joints.

I bought cheap autozone BJs years ago because they were inexpensive and had a lifetime warranty. Terrible idea! I've since replaced the lower ball joints at least 4 times and the uppers twice. Personally, I would spend the money on MOOG if I did it again.

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/de...an++arm+puller