Lower Balljoint Nut (please help)

[Black Magic]

Okay, so I just replaced one of my wheel bearings on the front of my 96 civic. I did this by removing the knuckle/spindle, pressing out the old bearing and having a new one pressed in.

Now that it's time to reinstall the knuckle, I am running into 1 problem, the lower ball joint castle nut is not going on completely... The thread which it is supposed to bolt onto starts turning with the nut when it's about half-way on. I tried everything I can think of for 2 hours before I gave up. Everything else is on and took like 15min, it's just this damn nut is being a b***h.

Here are some pics for illustration. The "screw" or thread that comes out below the balljoint starts spinning when I am trying to tighten the nut, so it's no longer being screwed on, the whole thing just keeps spinning.

It's kind of similar to when you're putting on new suspension and tightening the bolt that holds the pillowball mounts to the shock absorber's rod... but the end of the rod has an allen key that you can use to keep the rod from spinning while you bolt on the nut... however, there's nothing like that here.

Any suggestions please? Gotta get the car back on the road soon

 

[L.D.Forget]

if you lift the boot a bit there may be 2 flat spots on the round section that you can stick a wrench on, otherwise, you need a new balljoint.

 

[engineer2]

An impact wrench will spin that puppy on, but be careful to retorque it the right way.
Lacking that, you need to seat the taper of the ball jopint stud into the taper of the LCA. Two method come to mind:
Use a C-clamp to press the ball joint into the LCA and then try turning the nut.
Put a floor jack under the LCA and jack it up a bit until the ball joint seats in the taper.

 

[Jersey8]

^this guy. i was just about to say seat the taper and your good

 

[Black Magic]

Thanks for the tips guys... I took off the nut, applied some lubricant and let it sit for a bit. Then I used a c-clamp and it went in on the first try!