Lower Ball Joint replacement

cbrsilv15 · October 25, 2016

Why would you need a spring compressor to change out the ball joint? The whole strut assy can come out in one piece.

crushNchowda · October 25, 2016

Stock, sure, leveled nope. That is one of the key failure points with a level. He is SOL, best chance is to upgrade to something that will handle the new angles.

Also Crush, I rarely use a torque wrench, not sure what that use a truck as a truck means as it has no impact on usage but if it makes you sleep and feel better more power to ya...

Tyler

To each his own. They (torque specs) don't manifest themselves out of sheer will, engineers come up w/ them based on all kinds of calculations & factors as to what types of stress, forces, movement, uses the part(s) will be subjected to. 90% of the time, as you and others have stated, probably not a big deal - but if your plowing, regularly getting close to and/or meeting/exceeding max payload/tow ratings, driving the truck on unpaved roads while carrying a load, drving it spiritedly off-road & taking turns w/ the suspension under heavy load, ETC - using it as a TRUCK and not a passenger vehicle, well I'd wager that those torque specs become more important.....otherwise they wouldn't have them.

Reason I mentioned the situation w/ the vette is b/c similar to a truck, the vette is a vehicle that is more often used as a passenger vehicle (or a very slow taxi to your death bed based on some of the blue hairs I see driving them) - while it is perfectly tailored for that use the corvette was ENGINEERED to be used as a race car, & when you use it like you're supposed to like driving it balls to the wall on a road course, & disregard torque specs, well bad things CAN happen. For this reason I adhere to manufacturer's torque specs...particularly on critical parts like A-arms.....I am really astonished anyone would even question this.

The last thing I want to worry about as I'm hauling a$$ over my buddy's snow covered farmland in the winter is whether or not I remembered to torque the bolts to spec on my A-arms just as my front end collapses beneath me from hitting a ditch hard.

That was my point.

I don't wanna get the thread off track, but think about it this way - if engineering specifications were just a suggestion then why did his ball joint fail to begin with? OH that's right he had the suspension geometry off a hair from a level kit....guess those engineers know something after all.

Mike1220 · October 26, 2016

Are you running a lift? If yes, then absolutely run the cognitos & replace w/ moog parts cuz I would wager that could be a big reason for premature wear/failure.....would the cognito upper arms alter the angle of the suspension to help compensate for the added height? Does cognito sell the replacement arm w/ upper ball joints & bushings already pressed in?

Yes I am running a lift and already ordered the Cognito UCAs. Im hoping it'll keep from having this happen again, at the least it'll help from having it happen so soon. The Cognito arms bring everything back to how they were originally designed to be (well, so it lines up like stock at least), also the new UCAs will allow for more travel, about 20% more droop travel to be exact. They are made with a bolt in sealed ball joint or a uniball system. Since I don't want to have to grease them every few weeks ontop of paying an extra $200 upfront, I went with the bolt in sealed style.

dont know if the new trucks are the same as the 2007s but you have to grind off the top of the ball joint and push it out the bottom, there is a tool that when you push in the new ball joint the tool crimps the top to hold the ball joint in

from what it looks like the ones with steel control arms are the same. The trucks that have aluminum (like mine) have the same ball joints as the 8 lug axles (I know this holds true for the upper control arms, not 110% about the lower but I think it applies to both)

The new Moog ball joints will have a snap ring so itll be easier to install than having to redo the factory stamp

Bring your ass to VA and I'll get it done for you in a hour or so lol

come down to LA, I have bad ball joints! I can't make that drive right now lmao

Thanks everyone for the help! I went with the Moog lower ball joints and like I've mentioned already, the Cognito arms. Planning to do all this Wednesday of next week so we'll see how it all goes and I'll follow up about how it feels with the new ball joints and UCAs. For anyone interested since I didn't see it elsewhere on the forum. The part numbers are as follow.

FACTORY ALUMINUM ARMS:

Cognito UCAs: UCAK100045

Lower Ball Joints: K500245

FACTORY STEEL ARMS: (these seem to be identical to those part numbers for GMT900s)

Cognito UCAs: UCAK100047

Lower Ball Joints: K6541

njs2247 · October 28, 2016

Be sure to take a lot of pics for your fellow forum members.

As for torque specs, I am with crush, they are there for a reason. Overtightening bolts can cause the bolts to deform and fail and can even cause the part being tightened to deform. Not enough torque and the bolt can come loose or can cause the part the bolt is holding to squeak or rattle. Even if it is pretty tight. I leveled the rear of my '08 Sierra with some belltech hangers and didn't use a torque wrench and every time I'd turn I would hear a loud pop. I read some forum posts about the issue and it turned out that I needed to torque the bolts to spec. Went and bought a torque wrench, torqued them to spec and pop sound was gone. Now most of us will probably never encounter this problem, but I'd rather be safe then sorry.

OmniGLH · October 28, 2016

Ball joints wasted on a 2yr old truck?

How many miles?

Think the lift affected them?

LongrangeLauber · October 28, 2016

Ball joints wasted on a 2yr old truck?

How many miles?

Think the lift affected them?

Mine were shot from my level kit within 50k of it going on (mine were the upper ball joints though, not lowers) I've had mine less than 2 years

OmniGLH · October 28, 2016

Wow.

My truck's got 40k on it. It's all stock though (no lift or leveling kits). Wondering if this is something I have to watch out for in the coming 10k.

Mike1220 · October 31, 2016

Wow.

My truck's got 40k on it. It's all stock though (no lift or leveling kits). Wondering if this is something I have to watch out for in the coming 10k.

Doubtful. Yours are still in the original conditions that they were meant to be in. So you should be good for a while. Mine are shot because I got camping and I'm sure I managed to tear the boot somewhere during a trip

My tire has been wearing oddly for a while now. Got it aligned once but ball joints must not have been too bad at that point cause the shop didn't say anything. But now they are shot and need replacement.

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Mike1220 · October 31, 2016

Be sure to take a lot of pics for your fellow forum members.

As for torque specs, I am with crush, they are there for a reason. Overtightening bolts can cause the bolts to deform and fail and can even cause the part being tightened to deform. Not enough torque and the bolt can come loose or can cause the part the bolt is holding to squeak or rattle. Even if it is pretty tight. I leveled the rear of my '08 Sierra with some belltech hangers and didn't use a torque wrench and every time I'd turn I would hear a loud pop. I read some forum posts about the issue and it turned out that I needed to torque the bolts to spec. Went and bought a torque wrench, torqued them to spec and pop sound was gone. Now most of us will probably never encounter this problem, but I'd rather be safe then sorry.

I plan to! If my buddy and I can get started early enough I plan to let my GoPro record the process and post to YouTube

Will also be sure to do a write up [emoji1362]

I have a torque wrench lying aroundbso I plan to use it

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Tyler1199 · November 5, 2016

I'm at 26k miles and having the same problem. Deciding on whether to do control arms but ball joints are deff shot. 2.5 level on mine. Curious what the diff is between the ball joints you posted and these

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mog-k500007/overview/year/2014/make/gmc/model/sierra-1500

Also I haven't been able to find just uppers- most come with control arm?

Mike1220 · November 7, 2016

Hey all. So couldn't get many pictures of the lower ball joint change out process. I have a few pictures of everything done. Reason being is because I have a 6" knuckle lift is made a few things a bit more difficult that expected so picture opportunities were hard to come by. I even deleted the video cause half of it was us trying to fight to get the suspension apart because some things for some reason were already starting to seize.

Torqued everything back down to spec. But I'll also say the new ball joints and UCAs seem nice. We finished last night so I'm getting an alignment this afternoon after class and ride already seems a little better. Nothing extreme but it does take bumps in the road better. I'll post pics soon.

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COP TZR · November 23, 2017

On 05/11/2016 at 10:48 AM, Tyler1199 said:

I'm at 26k miles and having the same problem. Deciding on whether to do control arms but ball joints are deff shot. 2.5 level on mine. Curious what the diff is between the ball joints you posted and these

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mog-k500007/overview/year/2014/make/gmc/model/sierra-1500

Also I haven't been able to find just uppers- most come with control arm?

Did you ever get this done? If you have aluminum lowers, do you have part # of balljoint used?

COP TZR · November 24, 2017

Anyone who has actually replaced the lower ball joints in the aluminum lower control arms, could you give a quick summary of the parts, procedure, labor time, tools, and/or issues?

COP TZR · November 24, 2017

On 05/11/2016 at 10:48 AM, Tyler1199 said:

I'm at 26k miles and having the same problem. Deciding on whether to do control arms but ball joints are deff shot. 2.5 level on mine. Curious what the diff is between the ball joints you posted and these

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mog-k500007/overview/year/2014/make/gmc/model/sierra-1500

Also I haven't been able to find just uppers- most come with control arm?

Info from MOOG...