Gentlemen -- good evening. It's nice to be here today

So I am having an issue with one of the ball joints that I replaced about three months ago.

The problem I am having is with the passenger side one. When I first bought the van, the tire that was on that hub was worn very strangely. Basically the whole 1/3 of the outside of the tire was almost gone, while the rest of the tires tread was perfectly intact. Since I am trying to refurbish my van to almost new status, I went ahead and replaced the upper control arms and lower ball joints on both sides. What was strange was this: the lower ball joint on the problem side went in too easy in my opinion. The driver side I had to torque the press hard to get it in. On the passenger side, it was like turning a outside faucet. This did concern me at the time, but I was tired, hot and wanting to get er done, so I buttoned everything up and went to the alignment shop to finish the job.

For about three weeks it was good. Since then it has been groaning and creaking most of the time. I have tried to grease it four times and it still stinks. One funny thing is that I took it back to the guys at the alignment shop and they said the alignment is great.

So my questions are: can the socket of the lower control arm go bad? Or did I get a mismanufactured ball joint. I want to do this right the next time, so I am considering just getting a new lower control arm and putting that on. Are our springs compressed, so to take the lower control arm off a spring compressor would be needed?

I have done ball joints a few times before (I own a 02 F150 also so I KNOW about ball joints lol) but I am perplexed here. Can running a bad ball joint enough runin the socket?

BTW and PS:

I ordered from rockauto a dash cover. It is a Dash Designs DashEx. It fits really nicely, is made of great material, and is of high quality. I recommend it

 

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I replaced my lowers and the new ones had some splines/knurls on the perimeter. I used a 20 ton press in push them in, and it took a lot of force. If they go out again, I think my control arms will have been stretched out.

I removed my lower control arm and spring without a spring compressor, by slowly lowering the arm after popping off the ball joint, but a spring compressor would certainly have been safer.

 

thanks for the info guys...

I am going to try one thing before I go with new control arm...I went to my local shop and they said the Moog Problem Solvers are .1 of an inch larger and made for this specific issue.

I ordered one for 40 bucks. Ill pull it apart and see if it goes in tight. If it doesn't well Ill just return it and then get a control arm...

landyacht -- is this what you did?


How did you get it back in?

 

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Oh blackvan...my van is in the ulpolstrey shop getting new foam in the drivers seat Ill have it friday and a pic of the dash board for ya

 

Blackvan --

Here are some pix of the dash cover. I am really happy with it.

 

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