Cheap Trick

[jpourcy]

Hi Fellas,

Most of you already know how expensive those new Lexus front upper control arms are. 1st Generation - $660.00 a piece from the dealer.

There are aftermarket bushings that you can install in the control arms but to my knowledge, no upper ball joints. When the ball joints wear out, you have no choice but to replace the control arm.

On the internet I have found some control arms as low as $177.00 for the right side and $154.00 for the left side but I do not believe they are original equipment.

But there is a cheaper fix if you can catch it early enough.

You can drill a whole at the top of the ball joint and add a grease fitting and grease the joint. The joint seems to be made the same as ones that come with a grease fitting but with no hole.

I did this on both of my upper control arm ball joints and it works great. You can also do this to the outer tie rod ends.

But you cannot do this on the lower ball joint - not yet anyway. I'm working on it.

If you catch it early enough, you can add this grease fitting and keep that ball joint greased and more than likely it will last the life of the car, then when your bushings/bearings wear out, you can replace them at a reasonable cost.

It seems to me that many car manufacturers are doing this, not making joints to where you can grease them. Can you say, " No Maintenance?" But when they wear out you have to replace them $$$ DUH! Just another way for them to make a buck.

My upper ball joints did have some slack in them and it seems by pumping the joint full of grease it really helped out. It made it much tighter and keeps the noise down. I changed the tie rod ends but I added grease fittings to the new ones. Hopefully I will never have to buy those again.

I took the control arms out to do this. If you have an angle drill, you might be able to do this with the control arms on the car.

1. Centerpunch the the center of the top of the joint. (Be careful not to tear the boot if you have it off the car.)

2. Drill a 1/8 pilot hole.

3. Redrill a 3/16 hole.

4. Using a tapered short straight grease fitting, start it into the hole and tighten it up. I got mine from NAPA Auto Parts.

5. Reinstall the control arm.

6. Pump it full of grease and you are done.

If you keep it greased on a regular basis, it should last the lifetime of the car. The upper control arm ball joint has very little pressure on it compared to the lower ball joint. This means that you will not ever have to buy a $$$ new $$$ upper $$$ control $$$ arm.

Jerry

[billydpowell]

good tip, and it will work.

before I retired and closed my shop we put zerks into all the ball joints and tierod ends we installed.

the zerks are self tapping.

photo of my A model taken at my shop.

[jpourcy]

Hi Billy,

Nice model A. I restored a 1926 Chevrolet back in the 70's. The body was made of wood surrounded by sheet metal. I actually had to replace wood on the vehicle.

Jerry

[billydpowell]

any photos?

my A took me 7 years, frame off.

looked like this when I got it.

[jpourcy]

any photos?

my A took me 7 years, frame off.

looked like this when I got it.

No pictures. It wasn't mine. It belonged to Leon Pickard of Leon Pickard Chevrolet. I just restored it for him. I do not remember how long it took, but it seems like a couple of years on and off. I remember them painting it a real ugly color though. Some kind of pale yellow and black. It was also a frame off restoration.

It had wooden spoke wheels. An old guy I use to work with told me back in the day when these vehicles were on the road that when the steering got sloppy they would run these cars through water and the water would make the wooden spokes swell up and tighten the steering up. You know, high tech stuff.

Jerry

[da_fugative_7]

Hi Fellas,

Most of you already know how expensive those new Lexus front upper control arms are. 1st Generation - $660.00 a piece from the dealer.

There are aftermarket bushings that you can install in the control arms but to my knowledge, no upper ball joints. When the ball joints wear out, you have no choice but to replace the control arm.

On the internet I have found some control arms as low as $177.00 for the right side and $154.00 for the left side but I do not believe they are original equipment.

But there is a cheaper fix if you can catch it early enough.

You can drill a whole at the top of the ball joint and add a grease fitting and grease the joint. The joint seems to be made the same as ones that come with a grease fitting but with no hole.

I did this on both of my upper control arm ball joints and it works great. You can also do this to the outer tie rod ends.

But you cannot do this on the lower ball joint - not yet anyway. I'm working on it.

If you catch it early enough, you can add this grease fitting and keep that ball joint greased and more than likely it will last the life of the car, then when your bushings/bearings wear out, you can replace them at a reasonable cost.

It seems to me that many car manufacturers are doing this, not making joints to where you can grease them. Can you say, " No Maintenance?" But when they wear out you have to replace them $$$ DUH! Just another way for them to make a buck.

My upper ball joints did have some slack in them and it seems by pumping the joint full of grease it really helped out. It made it much tighter and keeps the noise down. I changed the tie rod ends but I added grease fittings to the new ones. Hopefully I will never have to buy those again.

I took the control arms out to do this. If you have an angle drill, you might be able to do this with the control arms on the car.

1. Centerpunch the the center of the top of the joint. (Be careful not to tear the boot if you have it off the car.)

2. Drill a 1/8 pilot hole.

3. Redrill a 3/16 hole.

4. Using a tapered short straight grease fitting, start it into the hole and tighten it up. I got mine from NAPA Auto Parts.

5. Reinstall the control arm.

6. Pump it full of grease and you are done.

If you keep it greased on a regular basis, it should last the lifetime of the car. The upper control arm ball joint has very little pressure on it compared to the lower ball joint. This means that you will not ever have to buy a $$$ new $$$ upper $$$ control $$$ arm.

Jerry

Sad to say that I have to get the control arms & balls joints replaced soon. My mechanic quoted me $678 (parts & labor included). I'll put a bug in his ear about putting grease fitting on. this will keep me from paying alot of $ over a period of time. thanks for the tip.

[bwilterink]

How often do you think they need to be greased?

[RDM]

You can buy a pair of the upper arms for $199 from Arnott. True, trying to save your existing ones is less money, but a lot of people don't have the patience to drill their own joints for fittings. Even then, you're still faced with replacing the bushings too to get them back to OE spec, and with the cost of fittings, bushings, and labor time to do it all you're close to the 10 minutes it takes to swap in new arms.

Not to bring your idea down, I'm a mechanic and applaud it. But how many other forum members do we have that even do their own work, much less pay a side shop to do it? Most of these guys from what I've seen are not the DIY types, they're the dealer only pay full price types. Nothing wrong with that either.