I'll make a long story short. I'm out of the country and had a local shop (not a Land Rover specialist) replace my upper and lower ball joints. Within a few short weeks, 3 of the 4 boots were busted. We decided to replace them again, but this time we would do it. When we went to remove the ball joints, the knuckle was so tight that you could barely move it. This would explain why the power steering pump has been making so much noise. We believe that the shop seriously over-torqued the ball joints. We put these new ball joints on and torqued them to the RAVE specifications. This still seems like it is tight, but we don't know how tight they should be. What do you guys think? Is this normal? Thanks.

 

After I installed my knuckles back on and torqed the bolts I could move them back an forth with one finger. They were smooth. Are the ball joints fully seated down to the flange?

 

Yeah, that seems to tight. What brand ball joint? Was there any noticeable damage to the mounting areas, like they had gone wild with a pickle-fork while removing the knuckle the first time? If the boots tore so quickly, to me, it would seem they messed up the mounting area, either causing the ball-joint not to center properly in the axle housing or they created burrs on the mounting areas. Are both side identical, tightness-wise?

 

Did you check to make sure the top and bottom joint holes are lined up and not twisted out of true, if the last set had to much heat put on them they may have twisted it out of alignment

 

Thanks for all of the replies, gentlemen. I'm relying on my dad and brother (who are very competent shade-tree mechanics) to tell me what is going on as I am still stuck out of the country.

We were thinking that this was still too tight as well (that's why we asked) and also thinking that they should be able to be moved with one finger. The ball joints that I had put on by the shop were made by Mevotech, they have good reviews, so I think the are a quality choice, but because we did not not know why the ball joint boots tore, we decided to go with another brand. I bought this set from Lucky 8 on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/291269751698

It doesn't looks like the yoke is bent or has any obvious scars on it. I'll make sure that they look again.

I notice that RAVE says to tighten the upper ball joint and then the lower ball joint. I need to check that they have done them in that that sequence. I've seen people claim that it makes a difference. Does anyone know if it really matters which one is torqued first?

Also, I've seen people on here claim that the RAVE torque settings were too tight. We certainly don't want them to be too loose - that would obviously be bad - but I wanted to know if there was any truth to those claims that the torque settings in RAVE are too tight. On a related note, does anyone know about these upper ball joints? They are the only ones that I have seen with a cotter pin. I like that. https://www.ebay.com/itm/233089552008