That's pretty much what we did before. I really prefer not to go through that again. I advise anyone who decides to try it that way to use a ball peen hammer. You will still be whacking it for a while but that kind of hammer helps.

I think the OTC 7249 and 7996 ball joint sets might be worth it. Has anyone tried using these sets to separate/replace your ball joints?

In the Civic Helms manual, a ball joint puller is used but the entire knuckle is removed and the parts are placed in a vise! Um, I don't want to take off the entire knuckle as I didn't have to before. The ball joint set should do the trick but it's expensive and a used 7249 set on ebay usually attracts a lot of bidders...

My guess is that since the ball joints are press fit, the force of hitting it with a hammer is not the same as those who use jacks as vises or ball joint pullers and extractors.