Diagnosing Ball Joints

Pull the control arms and visually inspect for pitting is the only way to confirm. The upper arms in the front and rear are extremely easy to remove. Once the wheels are off takes 15 min max. The lower arms are much more difficult to remove as you have to disconnect the lower shock and drop link.

I recently installed the Hill engineering ball joints on my scud with 10k miles and all the oem ball joints had pitting. I had some clunking in the front but rear was quiet.

 

There is a thread in technical right now discussing this at length with a couple of respected pros chiming in.

best

 

There are several failiure modes:

1) Degradation of the OE steel joints by water ingress:
2) Adhesive failiure leading to the joint moving up and down vertically between the securing circlips;
3) Wear within the joint itself.

All will cause noise, initially a thud, but with increased wear it can sound almost like a rattle in the wheel well. Worn fronts are much more evident than rears.

Checking is the same as on any other car: jack up a corner and feel for play using the wheel.

If the joints are worn then handling is affected.

I run HE joints and suffer #3 with some regularity when using the car on extended road trips that include some poorly surfaced Italian roads. The last set of HE track rod ends lasted only 6k.

 

Get some motorbike synthetic chain lub and using the thin plastic tube, pass this down past the top seal and the ball joint and give it a good squirt , i do this every couple years on my hill eng ones.

 

Assuming same as 430- jack front of car up. Grab wheel at 3+9 o clock and with steering wheel locked in place, see if any 3 to 9 movement- that will point to track rod ends
Take the front wheels off and locate upper ball joint, press finger in gap and use a pinch bar to see if any movement. Then lower ball joing
Rear is similar except 3 to 9 should be wear in rear tie bars ( assuming 360 like 430)

 

They will have water and dirt in them for sure, can you feel any movement with a pinch bar
You will have to remove them to renew the seals anyway

 

Water? who drives their car in water? haha better give us the vin's for all these water damaged cars! Cheers from waterless and in drought Calif!
PS: I've jacked my 360 up, 46K miles, and done those tests....Don't notice any issues at all.

 

Lucky for some, but rain is a part of life here. You will be telling me you are driving around on slicks next.