Ball Joints

[rayzjeep]

How do we petition for a TSB that replaces these junk plastic on plastic ball joints?!? This is a horrible design and has likely attributed at least somewhat to all these death wobble and flighty steering issues. I'm partially venting because I just went to order the Dynatrac ball joints ($629) and the only vendor seems to be Northridge and they don't even have them in stock!

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[Chief20]

Updates?

 

[rayzjeep]

None other than I have the ball joints in my garage...waiting for some time off to install them. Had to order directly from Dynatrac. Hoping it will make the front end feel at least as solid as my JK was.

 

[mwilk012]

What do you mean plastic on plastic? It should be metal on plastic (nylon, maybe?) at every wear point, just like every other OE ball joint ever built. I have not seen a JL specific ball joint dissected yet though.

 

[EZMFE]

None other than I have the ball joints in my garage...waiting for some time off to install them. Had to order directly from Dynatrac. Hoping it will make the front end feel at least as solid as my JK was.

You may already be aware of this but one thing you will want to do before tackling the ball joints is put the Jeep in 4H and turn it off. That is so the collar is moved to the intermediate axle shaft. The collar can move a bit and may stop you from being able to re-insert the axle shaft. This results in you having to attempt to line the collar back up or remove the FAD and placing the collar on the intermediate axle shaft by hand.

Another item is when removing the unit bearing... undo the bolts a bit and then just give the head of each a light tap to start the separation from the knuckle. That gives you enough space to get in-between without scaring up the aluminum knuckle trying to get it separated.

When removing the knuckle, I ended up placing a hand held sledge hammer on the top of the knuckle and hit it with a second sledge. This did what I consider minimal damage as doing it with a dead blow did not get the job done. There is a molding seam on the knuckle that will take a tiny bit damage but nothing like if you smacked it directly. Start with a dead blow but have a backup plan just in case. I also started soaking both upper and lower when I got started (covering up the u-joint).

Figured I'd save you from a wtf moment incase you were not already aware... the rest of it is pretty straight forward.

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