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Ball Joint help needed

jimmyleetn

jimmyleetn

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I'm trying to install ball joints on my '88 K5. I have a build thread, Running Down a Dream. I have hit a standstill on what to do. I purchased Moog ball joints and have had nothing but trouble. The first set I installed on the passenger side the pinch nut destroyed the lower so by the time I beat everything back off it destroyed the upper. So I bought another pair because I can only use Moogs at this point because they are splined. You'll see that in the picture. Apparently this wallows out the hole in the knuckle enough that other brand ball joints without splines will fall through by hand. I was hoping to go with some Spicers but I'll have to get all new steering knuckles. There are plenty on eBay but that just means I get to spend more money. I followed GM specs to install these what you'll see in the pictures as well. The Moog specs had even higher torque ratings and I followed those on the driver side which is also way too stiff. These Moog ball joints are garbage. I took a picture of the tension (it was awkward to do by myself). You'll notice in the picture as well that the top nut isn't on the ball joint. I'll also add that the lower ball joint is only torqued at 30 lb and the adjusting ring is torqued to 50 lb. It's got to be all in these ball joints. Factory specs are less than 25 lb pull and I'm nearly 15 pounds over that on both sides before they actually move. There is grease in the driver's side there is not in the passenger side that is in the picture but clearly having grease doesn't matter. The driver side was at about 39lbs and I counted 50 reps of turning by hand to try to make them looser thinking they would loosen up (quite the work out ). What should I do? Toss these steering knuckles and ball joints buy some knuckles off eBay and put some Spicers in and send it, or should I just go with it and run these? I feel like they're so tight I'll have crazy memory steer. This will not be an off-road vehicle, it will be a pavement princess. Any advice or input is great at this point. I do not know what to do from here.

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It's important to use the adjusting sleeve inside the hole for the upper ball joint. This little guy often gets overlooked and you need a special socket for it. It's called adjusting ring in your shop manual there. It sets the tension between the two ball joints just right.
 
Cheavyk10 said:
It's important to use the adjusting sleeve inside the hole for the upper ball joint. This little guy often gets overlooked and you need a special socket for it. It's called adjusting ring in your shop manual there. It sets the tension between the two ball joints just right.
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I got the spanner tool when I bought the first set of ball joints. Per the service manual I had torqued the adjusting ring at 50 ft pounds.
 
Cheavyk10 said:
Yeah I reread your post and saw that you did adjust it.
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Someone told me to go ahead and tighten the top ball joint and that that would take pressure off the lower, but logically I don't see how that's possible because I would only put more pressure on the lower because it would draw it up closer to the top. And I don't see how the lower would ever get looser if it's already that tight with only 30 foot pounds. I updated and put another picture in there as well of me pulling on it with a luggage scale.
 
Is there any room between the top of the ball joint body and the lower part of the C when it gets tightened up? What I'm saying is it shouldn't matter how tight the lower nut is because it just tightens up the tapered part of the stud, not the ball itself. If that stud has the wrong taper and the body is bashing into the C then it might be hard to turn. Just throwing out ideas I guess
 
another trick to help the lower nut get on and not spin much is put ALL the vehicle weight on the knuckle before you try and tighten the nut . as in a floor jack under the lower ball joint BUT dont break a zerk off . lift that corner of the axle off the stand and the weight will help hold the ball joint stud in the lower C and not spin .
 
sweetk30 said:
another trick to help the lower nut get on and not spin much is put ALL the vehicle weight on the knuckle before you try and tighten the nut . as in a floor jack under the lower ball joint BUT dont break a zerk off . lift that corner of the axle off the stand and the weight will help hold the ball joint stud in the lower C and not spin .
Click to expand...

I learned that trick with the first round when I destroyed the lower on this side because the pinch/lock nut was too deformed out if the box. I didn't have this problem with the this one because I use the old nut from the original ball joint, the ball joint will barely spin once tight, which I think is the source of the problem. The ball joint should have some rotation inside it's casing. Check out the one I tried a few days back. It took a 24in breaker and a 3ft cheater to get off once I put the jack under it. I really think Moog missed the specs on the tolerance for these.

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dana 60 king pins dont have these problems . . .

but do require BIG BOY tools . 3/4" ratchet and cheeter pipe . 3/4" torque wrench for 600 ft lb spec if you need to change king pins .

otherwise basic tools can service them . yes i know not all can have or need a 60 front . :pimp:
 
I had somebody offered me a bigger axle when I found out I had 308 gears but to run 33s on the street it just seemed like overkill to go through all that. Plus I painted mine up and she's a pretty son of a gun for a slug. I've already got a set of 411s in my cart on Amazon.

UPDATE: I was reading what all of you guys said and what somebody that's a gm tech told me on FB and I went in here and just tightened everything up to GM specs and it's within its tolerances. I don't know why and I don't know how because I feel like I'm pretty technical and can understand a lot of things when it comes to engineering but whatever. It's on there thank the Lord. Unfortunately, I have to go redo the other side.

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