Grease Seal.

[5.Woahhh]

Found my horrible creaking noise. The grease seal around the ball joint is cracked. I don't think the joint is bad. How do I go about replacing the seal itself?

 

[Addermk2]

replace the balljoint...

and if its creaking.. it IS bad

 

[5.Woahhh]

replace the balljoint...

and if its creaking.. it IS bad

But it doesn't have any play, like when I wiggle the tires. Doesn't that mean it's still good? I sprayed it with WD-40 and it stopped. I'll see how much it cost for 2 Ball Joints at autozone. If not I'm just doing the seal.

 

[Addermk2]

did you just raise the car and test it? or did you leave a load on the lower control arm when you tested it.

see, since your springs push down on the control arm, there is always pressure on the ball joint. The way we check them at work is to put the jack under the control arm (basically eliminating the pressure from the spring) and putting a long pry bar under the tire, and lifting upwards. I bet you will notice a bunch of play in them if you do it that way. I thought the same thing when I did mine (several years ago) But once I pulled them out, and held them upside down, and realized how loose they really were...I knew that I finally found my noise!

 

[Downshift]

Is there anyway just to replace the seal though? The ball joints in my car are about 2 years old and I just put a tear in the boot about 6 months ago... I was pretty pissed I have been putting grease in there to make sure but Id rather just replace the seal and be done.

 

[MuscleMustang95]

for all the trouble you would go through to try to replace the seal it is just worth it to replace the ball joint

 

[5.Woahhh]

Just looked today. I'm going to do it when I put my new shocks and springs on.