Recently replaced steering knuckles. But i cant get the nuts to tighten onto the ball joints. The bolt itself is spinning around. Does this mean the ball joints are bad? Or am i missing something? Was hell getting them off to begin with. Had to use a big *** pipe wrench just to have enough leverage. Thanks for your time and any advice guys.

You need new ball joints. They shouldnt spin.

Here is why i replaced the knuckles. One of my wheel bearings exploded. Then i took it apart and there was no wheel bearing races. Or the races were somehow built into the rotors but i couldnt find replacement parts like this. So i just went to a pick n pull and yanked off some new knuckles that looked alot better.

[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/823/p1010001ye.jpg/]
[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/4/p1010002wt.jpg/]

And heres the new one. [URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/864/p1010006d.jpg/]

You can see one of the ball joints that i cant tighten. The castle nut and the bolt spin around while im trying to tighten it. Is it busted or is there a trick or what?

Really? That sucks... Theyre so expensive to get new. And how the hell do i even remove them? I could hit up pick n pull and look for some good ones but to get them out?

I'm kinda confused man. Those rotors don't belong to an xj, i think you pulled the wrong ones. Xjs have what's called a floating rotor set up. They have no bearings or races in the actual rotors, the have a hub unit bearing, which is held on by the three 12point headed bolts behind the knuckle. And I dont see a ball joint there, it is a tie rod end...and then just the outer shaft of the axle shaft coming through the hub bearing...correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99% sure I'm right....the rotors should look like this

You are correct.

The new rotors do look like that. The first two pics are the old ones. It didnt look right ot me either. IN the first pic you can see that it exploded and took out my spindle and the rotor. In the second pic you can see the bearings are just set inside the rotor. The 3rd pic is the new ones ive just put on.

Ok so that tie rod end there thats not a ball joint? The bolt is spinning when it ry to put the castle nut on. It is also doing that on the lower ball joint behind the hub. This is a 2wd jeep. And one is doing it ont he upper on the passenger side.

Try putting pressure on the bottom side of that tie rod end and get the tapered stem to seat in the hole in the knuckle. It also helps if you have an impact to tighten the castle nut.

A floor jack under the TRE will help. No sense in tighteneing it though, you need a new one.

Sounds good bill. Its an idea to try at least. I could give a **** if its busted right now. I just need it to roll for awhile and i just need this to be tight enough that its safe. Misaligned and death wobbly are just fine.

I dont have an impact wrench though. Got the air compressor for it. Will have to look around. Have a corded 20+ volt drill though. Maybe do the trick. Would applying the pressure work for the ball joints behind the hub too? Maybe with a C-clamp? Im assuming applying pressure may keep it from spinning the stud?

as far as i know, 2wd and 4wd have different set ups. no hub units on 2wd.
if you put a hub on a 2wd, you would have to put a stub shaft in just to keep the hub unit together.

is this what you ended up doing?? i'm more confused now.

2wd should have the wheel bearings in the rotors... as pictured above.

Oh ok...2wd got it. For the tie rod end, put pressure like everyone else is saying, maybe you can do it then. For the ball joint, you'll need a ball joint press to pop them out, I think the rent them at Autozone. I guess you could try the c clamp to put pressure on it too. Might work for ya...

Well no this isnt what i did. I has a 92 cherokee. I found a 93 cherokee sport that had the hub and what not. Both 2wd. Two different rotor bearing hub setups. However it looks like a shaft could be run to it in the future. It looks like theres a removable cap for the shaft to slip in.

Using the c-clamp gave me enough pressure to tighten up the tie rod end and the lower ball joint but i dont have enough surface area to bite onto the upper ball joint on the passenger side. The threads are also kind of messed up. I had to grab it with a vice grip and inch the bolt off then tried again and it got stuck spinning the bolt again and i said eff it.