Hello guys need a little help. Not my first ball joint replacement, but first on a DII. After much cursing, banging and sweating I got the steering knuckle off and removed the passenger side upper and lower ball joints. I went with the Moog replacements and a tool rental from O'Reilly's. I got the ball joint kit + the 4x4 kit of extra sleeves. Turned out the clamp was already bent and was a bit off. FYI - If you are renting a tool set get the one from Advance. Their large kit has a much better sleeve assortment than the 2 kits I originally had. That said I thought I could manage pressing them back in with the first kit. I started off well enough until the cup slipped and bent the lip of the ball joint pretty bad. I backed it back out and returned the clamp kit. Starting with a brand new kit from Advance I thought I was good. The clamp was nice and straight and I had better fitting cups. Once again I put the new ball joint in the freezer overnight and began pressing. I was going slow, everything looked nice and straight. I don't think I was putting too much force on the joint, but it tore the ball joint lip as well. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

 

I would think it is not perfectly square or lined up 100%, I know the last ones I did were a pain in the ****. I ended up making my own cups out of pipe fittings to get done right and gently tapping it with a hammer as I pressed them in. And used a lube

 

I applied lube on the first 2 attempts. Today I'm going to clean the axle really well and apply heat.

 

The same exact thing happened to me. I have done ball joints many times on Jeeps and this was my first time on a Disco 2. I went with Moog because that's what was available at the time. After getting the driver's side together, that knuckle is VERY stiff if I even go to half the torque spec. Move to the passenger side where the Moog lip tore off during install. If it would have happened on the first side I started with, I would have stopped and sources better ball joints.

I had even removed the panhard bar and ratched the axle toward the pass side to get a good square approach and even pressure on the joint. Finally got new joints installed on passenger side and again, stiff knuckle if I go to half the torque value. I told myself it may loosen up and I should drive it.

Short story is that there is a TON of memory steer, I'm not at the proper torque, and the closest thing to a logical answer I can find on this forum is that the tapers on the old knuckles and new joints may be off and allowing the knuckle to bottom out. Before I tear it all apart and replace knuckles, any advice? If I have it that far apart, is there a greasable high quality ball joint anyone recommends? I would almost rather build an axle on the floor and swap it in.

Also - any truth to the Rave manual about only before good for three sets of ball joints before housing needs replaced? My truck had 165k on it when I bought it so I have no idea if they had already been swapped before. Sorry for all the questions!


Pile o parts - Including those damn moogs

Napa replacement. Much more Sturdy.

Passenger side moog fail.

New shafts, ball joints, bearings and brakes.

 

Due to the pain in the *** nature of this job and crazy cost to have a shop do it I wouldn't be surprised if they were original or only swapped once. I have a torn boot on one of mine and have the replacements but it's still solid so I can't bring myself to rip it all apart to replace it yet.

 

I'm getting geared up to do this on my 04... very much not looking forward to it. Also, it's funny - I came from the BMW world where folks, including myself at one point, decry BMW's choice to make these balljoints un-serviceable and instead, if you want to replace them, an entire new control arm has to be purchased since the ball joints are permanently installed in them from the factory... Yes, they were about $100 more than perhaps buying balljoints alone, but the installation was an easy hour compared to this nightmare. I now appreciate what I once thought to be idiotic.

 

Yeah, my recommendation is to park your rover in a spot where it could be disassembled for more than a few days if stuff goes south I currently need motivation to go out there and disassemble my driver's side and potentially do new joints on it to ditch the moogs. That would leave me with 1 moog on the passenger side.

Are there greasable good options for these?

 

I looked online for greaseable ball joints for a Disco 2 and couldn't find any. But that was 2 years ago.

 

So I had a few hours today to work on the ball joint situation. After striking out on searching for any greaseable joints, I called Moog and explained the issue.

The tech support guy was able to give me the torque spec for how easily these things should spin if I double nut them and put a torque wrench on them - which is 14 ft lbs to start and 2 ft lbs to keep it going. I figured it was worth checking the joints as I knew the upper was stiff and likely the culprit.

On moogs, he upper threads are 14mm X 1.5 pitch and lowers are 16mm x 1.5 pitch. Don’t assume your hardware store has these and buy them in advance of needing them!

I jacked up the drivers side, removed my brakes, axle/bearing and then removed the knuckle. Much easier since they are new parts with only a few hundred miles on them! I double nutted the upper and lower and immediately could tell the bottom was much freer than the top. My torque wrench probably isn’t accurate below 20 ft lbs but the top was able to turn before 14 ft lbs BUT that is still a ton of knuckle resistance and I’m surprised it’s their spec.

So then I put the ratchet on it and just stared working it left and right to see if I could notice any kind of change which I didn’t. It was constantly stiff.

Then I had an idea to pop the lower dust boot retaining ring off, tap the joint upwards a bit into itself, and take a needle adapter to my grease gun and slowly inject the joint with grease. I then pushed the boot upwards with the pickle fork to work the grease into the joint. After that, I spun the joint a bunch more with the ratchet and noticed a MAJOR improvement. I repeated this until the boot was full and reinstalled the ring.

I went ahead and greased the bottom joint in a similar way too. Reinstalled the knuckle and snugged the bottom nut hand tight, torqued the top to 80 and the bottom to 100 working the knuckle the entire way. Once the top seated, it definitely made it more stiff, but I could still move the knuckle. Before, if it was torqued to 20 ft lbs the knuckle would freeze.

I reassembled everything and went for a spin down the interstate and noticed a major improvement! Still need to do the passenger side but I’m confident this will be the solution. I could actually feel some return to center and didn’t have to concentrate on steering. Hitting patches on the interstate didn’t cause the truck to jolt to one direction or the other!

SO long story short, my suspicion is that these ball joints have all been sitting on parts shelves for over a decade and what little grease they may have had in them is waxed and no good. I highly recommend carefully injecting the boot with grease and working the joint like I did. Be careful with those needle injectors as they are sharp and will pierce the boot or your hand! They can be had at Napa for about $6 bucks and work with any grease gun. You can insert by pulling the boot down on the taper and sliding in between boot and joint. Then slowly start to fill!

Hopefully I can do the passenger side next week and will keep you posted!

Lower Moog had free motion and spun with ease. The upper is defiantly the problem.

I used Moog’s tech support suggestion of trying to see if it took 14 ft lbs or less to start to spin. My wrench may not be accurate that low but it seemed to move before 14 ft lbs. Still WAY to stiff. I think their spec should be less that 8 ft lbs.

Here is the VERY sharp grease gun attachment I used to inject the joints. I pushed the upper joint into itself a bit to allow the grease to work itself into the baby king pin.

 

You can remove the spring clip and the boot to get the grease deeper into the ball joint just like on a track rod end...