1974 Chevy Nova My first project car

Ball Joints and Parts Application

Since the last post, I got smart and purchased a ball joint separator tool at AutoZone. I brought it home and started using it right away. After about an hour of taking turns with my brother-in-law and wailing on the pickle fork with a sledge hammer, bending the forks, and trying to loosen the lower ball joint, I decided to try the upper ball joint. I came in from the side of the car instead of front or back and the upper ball joint separated within a few whacks. Now that I could rotate the lower ball joint on more than one axis, I was able to separate it without a problem. After all was done, I remembered that the Hayne's Manual said to separate the upper ball joint first.

Since CHEVY Nova parts are so abundant and easy to find on the Internet, and since I possess the knowledge, I created a small web-based application that allows me to enter and compare prices of different car parts. For example, I'm currently looking for a front end suspension rebuild kit. One of these can be found at all kinds of online stores. All of these stores also have different ideas of what the kit should contain. I would add the distributor and the part to the database and include the price, url, and the notes. I can later bring up the part and do a price and content comparison and determine what is the best deal.