Need help asap with control arm removal

Hi, I am new to the forum but have been on the six speed online one for a few years. I have a 2003 996 with 115,000 miles on it that I have owned for about 5 years now and this winter I am doing some maintenance. I already did new spark plugs and coil packs and new front bilstein B6 struts with new mounts, tie rod ends, and stabilizer links. I live in western PA and corrosion here is a problem but I was able to get all this done with out too much trouble but now I'm stuck and really need some help. I am in the process of replacing the front control arm bushings and the ball joint is frozen in the wheel hub. I tried using my Harbor Freight ball joint separator but during tightening it slipped an bent the bolt from the ball joint somewhat. Now not sure what to do. It is really frozen in there. I could cut the bolt flush with the wheel hub and try to push it out with heat and pounding with a punch or something but wanted advice if there are any better ideas. Any help is much appreciated. as you can see the bolt is now slightly bent

Lets see a pic of your ball joint separator, there are some good ones and some not so good ones. The slightly bent stud won't matter, it will come on out once the tapered joint is popped loose.

Try some heat with a propane or map gas torch while pressing it out. See if u can get the nut back on so u have something larger to press against.

The operative word here is "harbor freight" tool. You want something more robust. Put the nut back on, get a real good ball joint removal tool and put some pressure on the stud. Heat up the aluminum arm around it and pound the arm surrounding the stud with a big hammer.

Thanks for the advice. Really appreciate it. Here is a pic of my ball joint separator. I should be able to put the nut back on. I have a MAP torch at home as well.

Maybe a pickle fork in this case.

That ball joint separator looks like one of the better ones , at least it didn't break...lol Put some good moly grease on the threads and ball socket so the tool won't be twisting while your are pressing under force, get every thing level and aligned up and keep tuning until something breaks.(I don't like hitting aluminum with a hammer)

I’ve had mine pop off before. Just put it back on and try it again.

I ended up buying another ball joint separator from OTC tools. This one is much more robust plan to go back in this weekend and will let all know what happens. Thanks for all the advice.

Went back at it today with the larger ball joint separator but the bolt sheared off almost flush. Tried putting a small nut right over its place but no success. Now not sure what to do.

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What happened when you put the small nut on top of the broken stud? The small nut broke/exploded? or did you run out of turning power?

First I put a nut on the stud then sprayed PB blaster and heated up the bottom of the hub assembly. I tightened it all up slowly and eventually used my breaker bar when BAM the the nut and stud sheared off. I then put a smaller nut on top of the depression that you see in the picture and tightened down and all that did is push it into the hole. Nothing budged. It�s really frozen. I was able to get it out with a small screwdriver. Stopping for today to regroup but I think my next step is to remove the hub assembly put it in a vise then heat all around it and try to punch through or maybe drill through or last resort take it to a shop for help. any other suggestions are greatly appreciated

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That's what I use, sometimes 2 together if necessary.

do you mean 2 nuts on top of each other?

I had this and it took a pickle fork and a small sledgehammer and several good whacks while I counterheld the carrier with my other hand. You can see my mangled up bolt in this photo as well. The pickle fork was a loaner from O'Reilly's The HF tool is good but it's jaws aren't as wide as the OTC, I like to use the OTC tool with the HF upper arm.

I�m happy to say that I was able to get this off. I had no luck with the pickle forks I was using I then took the entire hub assembly off and put it on my bench. I heated it up for at least 5 min and at the end shot Deep Creep and WD 40 into it i then put a very small socket on top of the hole and tried the ball joint separator again. I used the top of the harbor one and the bottom was the OTC one. That gave me more wide opening. I cranked it down and BOOM it Popped it. Scared the crap out of me. thanks for all the concern and help.

Ha! Old mechanics like not telling the new guy that the joint is going to pop loudly and watch their face. I‘ll tell them that it will let go quickly, so don’t get hurt, but the loud pop is always left as a surprise. I watched three people in the last year learn about it the hard way.