I bought 2 lower ball joints while I was rebuilding the front suspension of the ranch wagon but decided to clean-up and reuse the originals since they appeared to be a much stouter and better built unit. Unfortunately while re-torqueing the right side, the stud broke and I was forced to use one of the aftermarket ones I bought. For some reason I could not get all three holes to line up with the holes in the lower control arm and I couldn't figure out why. The picture below shows why. The hole in the aftermarket ball joint (on left) is a minimum of 0.050" off center from the casting. This is the hole that the lower control arm bumper goes. The ball joint on the right is the original and the hole is dead center in that casting which also has a steel sleeve. The other aftermarket lower ball joint was only 0.010" off center and I was (barely) able to get the bumper stud through without drilling anything out. BUYER BEWARE!!Rono

  Ron Lane,  Meridian, ID

Just gets worse doesn't it ...  my fear is the quality of bearings these days..



"Came too close to dying to stop living now!"