DumpsterFire
Well-Known Member
I'm almost tempted to say they all suck and get the cheapest Chinese junk off rock auto and run with it
What ball joints are any good anymore?
- Thread starter DumpsterFire
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proforged and mevotech supreme are currently my go to's. i've had pretty good luck with delco gold as well, but they can be difficult to source.
dorman's "premium" can be alright, but again are sometimes difficult to get.
dorman's "premium" can be alright, but again are sometimes difficult to get.
ESP47
Well-Known Member
I haven't had any problems with Moog, even though they're made in China now.
Most of us aren't putting 10,000 miles a year on our cars anymore. The odds of a normal car enthusiast wearing out ball joints after a suspension rebuild is probably pretty low these days.
Most of us aren't putting 10,000 miles a year on our cars anymore. The odds of a normal car enthusiast wearing out ball joints after a suspension rebuild is probably pretty low these days.
DumpsterFire
Well-Known Member
I'm almost thinking like that. And if that's the thinking why not buy some Chinese mystery meat on rock auto. I
4mulas
Fixem'up
What car? Looks like @grampscamp has NOS old us made Moog ball joint for early a-body (up to 72) with drum brakes….
I just got a bunch of moog parts from rock auto and from eBay and all USA made. I'm sticking with moog til I have an issue. I've used tons of their parts over the last 40 or so years and so far so good now at work I've gotten some of the "cheapest Chinese ****" and had problems before I got out of the door.
abodyjoe
Well-Known Member
had a brand new moog on the car that was bad. chased the issue a while before i just changed the lowers out for the hell of it and the problem went away.. between my personal experience and the various others i read about i'm done with moog garbage...
i ended up with XRF brand ball joints and they have been great. they were hard to find at the time though.. the proforged i hear are real good too.. also hear that the premium napa ones are good too..
i ended up with XRF brand ball joints and they have been great. they were hard to find at the time though.. the proforged i hear are real good too.. also hear that the premium napa ones are good too..
Proforged is good stuff. Actual metal cups (no plastic inserts in the ball joint) and everything I’ve bought was nice and tight with a proper amount of tolerance.
The last set of Moogs I got one ball joint was loose and sloppy, the other was so tight it couldn’t be moved by hand. Both were brand new out of the bag and showed no sign of being returns or anything like that. Moog is garbage. On another occasion the included castle nut from Moog didn’t have any threads in it. Just a manufacturing defect, but not much QC going on there.
The last set of Moogs I got one ball joint was loose and sloppy, the other was so tight it couldn’t be moved by hand. Both were brand new out of the bag and showed no sign of being returns or anything like that. Moog is garbage. On another occasion the included castle nut from Moog didn’t have any threads in it. Just a manufacturing defect, but not much QC going on there.
Most ball joints that don't have nylon guts are very hard if not impossible to move in your hands. I've had the ultra cheapies be so tight once installed that the truck pulled whichever way you last turned. Solved by replacing with MOOG.
the problem is that the parts are bad from the jump. sloppy tolerances, bad threads, poor fit, terrible quality.
i had a guy insist on moog stuff for his ride. i had to order 6 or 8 control arm bushings until i got two that weren't totally sloppy on the pin or obviously poor quality. and with that, who knows how long he'll get out of them. the small joint uppers were acceptable, but shipped missing the hardware. the lowers were tighter than a buck toothed prom date and made it a ***** to align. and after they loosened up a little i had to align it again. i'm sure it'll need another before summer cruising season gets underway. i don't have high hopes for the longevity of those.
while i've not had anything go full tilt unscheduled disassembly, i've seen plenty a joint with less than 1K miles on it slap *** wore out and near point of failure, with the corresponding wasted tires. the ol' two for one as it were.
i'm not one to hate on the hong kong phooey stuff, if the QC is there and the parts are good i don't care where it's made. hell, TRW used to have the shittiest made in USA upper ball joints. even mcquay-norris had a terrible run there back when.
my choice in parts that i recommed is based on experiece and the fact that my name is on the finished product. if you like rebuilding front ends every other year or taking the chance on roaching out a set of tires, by all means roll some dice on the chickety-china stuff.
DumpsterFire
Well-Known Member
I do make that gamble more than I should. Had a Chinese mystery meat wheel bearing die on my dakota in less than a year. My concern though is that there aren't really any parts that aren't Chinese mystery meat when it comes to rebuilding these front ends.
Icetech
Well-Known Member
k, was just curious... i have never had a problem and was wondering what issues people have actually had.. my only problem was a cast/machined made in USA part from edelbrock i paid twice the price it should be and was told too bad when it wouldn't even bolt on a motor properly.... kinda made me see things differently
MechNerd
I can fix stupid, but it's gonna hurt...
Was just looking at replacing all the front end parts on my 66. Can't vouch for the quality, but Rock Auto had a very good selection of parts, from cheap Chinese **** to (hopefully) American made brands.
Icetech
Well-Known Member
I went with the Drdiff rebuild kit.. not sure where his stuff comes from but no issues at all soo far
@mobileparts Craig can probably sell you NOS...
We're on the same page there ..
But I've been using MOOG without issue for too many years now and have seen issues with the rest.... I'm in the middle of a complete tear out rebuild of a D250 right now.... Just changing everything because I'm in there.
I've seen the issues you mentioned with the rest. . You see a bunch from under the alignment rack .. but I just don't see the issues with MOOG everyone else claims..
Not saying they don't have a bad batch sometimes everyone does. But I use what works.
abodyjoe
Well-Known Member
no need to keep defending your position, you like moog. we get it. keep using that junk if you prefer.
I hawk ebay for old NOS stuff. Either factory Chrysler or, NAPA, older MOOG, or some other Made in USA brand. But OLD. Older NOS McQuay Norris is also another good brand.
I don't know where Kanter/PST sources their parts, but everything in their standard rebuild kit looked, felt, and installed like quality parts. The only thing I didn't like was the OE style one-piece strut rod bushing (it wasn't necessarily bad, I just like the Moog K740 better).
i can only report what i know to be factual and i've held in my hands and seen with my own eyes. who knows maybe their truck stuff is different than the stuff they contract out for our cars.
i rebuild 3~5 front ends a year, plus do a ton of loosies on spec or for guys that are DIY but don't have those tools. except for their offset upper control arm bushings, moog has been somewhere between total crap and a total crap shoot for the last 10~15 years. these days, they're the absolute last option for me.
EDIT: and credit where it's due, their buffers are good too.
I don't work beneath a front end rack anymore but I still do more front end work than that in my job.... as a fleet mechanic for a miserable state that loves Fords... or at least the purchasing dept does (people that dont have to use what they buy for the rest of us) unfortunately by state govt contract we're married to Napa.... so I gotta use what they can get me. and I dunno what that is.. "mystery parts" but they have 3 grades, we usually get sent the "middle" grade. the low grade is definitely crap, the mid grade mostly comes from Taiwan, and the high grade when available appears to be the higher level Mevotech. They know better than to send the lowest grade and we only get the hi grade ones when were in a time crunch and that's all they have available. but on anything that gets done in my own garage? where I have control over what parts get used? I do know that on complete control arm assemblies Moog now has 2 lines. I think the "RK" is the cheaper of those. and the "CK" is the better line.
The uppers on my 64 are a little loose. My alignment tech pointed that out a couple days ago. For convience, I looked at Rock Auto. The old TRW's used to be real good, so were Moog. Used to be.
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