Ball Joint Failure?
 

Hey Guys,
A while back I had loud squeeky noise from the L/H front end of my 93 230E (70,000 Miles), read up on your posts and did inject the heavy grease into the lower ball joints, walla the noise was gone, but I could tell the L/H lower joint has some play, my question is.... After seeing the news about Dodge's Durango Ball joint failures.. And being stuck in Nigeria, with road conditions being extremely poor, should I change the ball joints or trust the grease fix? REAL FACTORY Parts are extremely hard to come by, lots of bogus spare parts in this country. Do I change the complete lower arms, or can I press in new joints?

Thanks Again

Joe McGlynn

Change the ball joint as soon as you can. It's not safe to drive like that. Specially if it has already rusted due to lack of lubrication. If it pops out while you are driving at high speed you will not be able to steer.

New ball joint is very cheap . You can just bang out the old one and press the new one in.

Joe,

While I know nothing about the Dodge issue you speak of;

the 124 balljoint is under 'popout' load anytime the suspension hits its lower limit of travel.

my 124 balljoint did pop out of its socket at around 185k (shortly after I acquired it). The boot was not even torn! Fortunately it was moving very slowly at the time...

Your custom lifted suspension may put a lot more 'popout' stress on the balljoint, since it may reach the downward travel limit more frequently. Rough roads would stress it anyways.

Anyways, over here they run less than $30 each. With the labor rates you spoke of in a previous thread, I would just bet it would be cheaper to have the joint replaced. Really should do the CA bushings at the same time for good measure.

I believe the OE balljoint was Lemforder.

Joe

One of my ball joints on my 88 190e, was making noise so I just changed out both of them! Do both, chances are if one is worn the other is worn or soon to be bad. At the same time, I took advantage of having the Control Arm bushings changed. Furthermore, had all tie rods and so forth checked while the mecanic was there. Also, while you are there, check the sway bar bushings (I had mine changed about a month ago).

The cost was very reasonable and the results were exceptional. The car handles, or at least feels, a lot more stable!

Iggy