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Better aftermarket ball joints....


lakefxgp96

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So since replacing a ball joint on the 96 from stock back in late 2005 (got noisy), i have had to replace the same side 4 times since them. What happens is that the ball joint bolts they come with SUCK very bad. I've used an autozone set that had aircraft nuts (with plastic washers) :frown: after a month or two, it came loose at the bolts, 2 were holding on for dear life, 1 was broke, and one was loose. Then i replaced it with another autozone set under warranty...i maybe got 200 miles on them and the same thing happened. I then got a new set from advance, this time with TINY notch nuts. The nuts stripped out and never tightened on the first set, then i got another set and this time they installed correctly, however the following spring (2007), the nuts had backed out just like the autozone ones. I tightened them back down carefully and I got another month out of them, but they are loose again. Each time it is obviously BAD construction, cheap nuts and cheap bolts that are too small and too flimsy to even handle daily driving. Why am i having such bad luck with these? If you have a set from either of these places that you installed yourself, i would consider checking on them on a regular basis.

 

BTW, i had a set replaced at a shop on the lumina early last year, they used a pretty nice nut, they said they were MOOG. they never failed or gave me problems in the time that i drove the car, and i put 20,000 miles on that ball joint without problems. Where can i get MOOG ones?

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I dont use the nuts they give with the kits. I usually use a torque thread, grade 8. They never back out.. Finding them is a pain in the ass that much I remember. But I dont know where I got them from. This was 13 years ago when I did this on my 88 grand am..

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dude, lesson learned that you shouldn't use plastic ball joints. You want to go with higher quality MOOG parts, or AC delco, or several other brands, but if one thing is for sure, never use plastic.

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NAPA premium ftw all I use on chassis parts.

 

My buddy works at napa and he say's the moog stuff is there bottom dollar stuff.

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So i called a couple NAPA's in kzoo, none of them carried MOOG :(, they carried DANA?...they had a $22 version and a $55 version.

 

One of the NAPA guys said I can check with Auto Value and they will have the MOOG part. And sure enough, Auto Value did have it...$63. Yikes. Well it was worth it. I can tighten the crap out of these bolts...that actually have TQ spec marking on them (what a concept) and they did not strip at 5 ft lbs like the cheepies :frown: Anywho, thanks for the help guys, I feel MUCH safer in this car now.

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Awesome...lesson certainly learned the hard way...4 times :mad:

 

At least you already had the rivets gone after the first ball joint replacement. :lol:

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Awesome...lesson certainly learned the hard way...4 times :mad:

 

At least you already had the rivets gone after the first ball joint replacement. :lol:

 

I am so sick of those rivets, I am to the point, I might just replace the control arm from a junkyard car just so I dont have to do that again LOL..

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Awesome...lesson certainly learned the hard way...4 times :mad:

 

At least you already had the rivets gone after the first ball joint replacement. :lol:

 

I am so sick of those rivets, I am to the point, I might just replace the control arm from a junkyard car just so I dont have to do that again LOL..

yay for air hammers with chisels :cool: makes it really easy
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yay for air hammers with chisels :cool: makes it really easy

 

That's what I use. :wink: I have drilled some out in the past though.

 

I was planning to drill them out, seeing as I will have the control arms off the car to replace the bushings. Was it 10x easier for you to drill them out than with the air chisle?

 

Jamie

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