any tips? Have the UCA completely off but the damn ball joint doesn't want to come easily out of the knuckle...I am tempted to sawzall the damn thing but I don't want to risk damaging the knuckle if I don't have to...Yes, the bottom nut on the ball joint has been removed but it just does't want to come out....

There are Ball joint removal forks - but those tend to detroy the Ball joint in the process of getting the ball joint out of the knuckle.

you can rent a service kit from auto zone or some other part store, it will have the proper tool... You also want to pop that balljoint before you pull the other bolts, less leverage.

JT had told me recently that all you need to do is hit the top of the knuckle with a hammer, and the ball joint should should separate.

Use a BFH to separate the ball joint from the spindle by striking the top of the spindle. This should force the ball joint to drop. Be careful if you want to reuse the ball joint though as it can get damaged during removable.

BFH is the easiest and best method..

yep, smack the spindle at the top right where the ball joint goes into it....a few good whacks and it should just pop out

I just did this shit and could not get enough room to really swing the BFH with any conviction; brake line and all that. I had the cv axle out already so I had enough room to use a Tierod/Pitman Arm Puller. Came right out.

i used a combo of pickle fork and bfh and direct bfh application directly to the spindle

I ended up going this route since I had to remove the CV in order to swap the front diff as well...even using the tierod/pitman arm puller it was still a beyotch to get out, but its done...one side at least...now for the other...damn I'm gather a large pile of old parts...UCAs, front diff, tcase, rear third, crap loads of nuts and bolts...

leave the UCA on for the next one, its way easier to get the ball joint to pop when its still bolted to the control arm

Will do!!

Well that's freakn' genius! Why can't I think of this stuff while I'm working on my junk?