Another ball joint question

[John Zuber]

Ok, got my parts today (on-line). One of my upper ball joint assemblies came with a grease fitting hole, but without the nipple. The other side came without the capability of having a grease nipple. The vendor offered to return the assembly that's has the missing nipple and return an assembly with one...but that the other assembly, the one without the option of being greased, is correct as is. So...I'm going to see if I can get a grease nipple from a local store and install it into the assembly with the tapped grease hole.



Question....since I have a tap/die set, could the top cover of the other assembly be drilled and taped so that a nipple could be installed? The top cap looks identical to the cap with the threaded hole, and seems to be the same thickness. What do you think?

 

[Taylor Corn]

Lowes has all the grease fittings you will need.



Same experience with the ball joing on the left side. Right side had fitting. Raybestos is what I prefer and went with them knowing the left wasn't greasbable.



With the long life of the ball joints that came stock without grease additions throughout their life I wouln't get into the part personally, grease what you have and leave the others alone.

 

[John G]

I wouldn't drill and tap a suspension part to modify it.



If you don't like the part, return it and get something different. My shop installed Moog brand lower ball joints, which is a good brand, I believe. They have grease fittings.



I noticed that in another thread, JohnZ, you said that you had only 80k miles. I have only 65k miles, and my ST is 15 years old.



I agree with BigT that a non-greasable ball joint doesn't sound that bad, if you expect it to last 10 years. My factory lower ball joints lasted 15 years, and my uppers are still good. The grease inside a sealed joint eventually dries up, and time is a factor. If you don't expect to own the ST 10 years from now, then I would think the sealed joint is fine.

 

[John Zuber]

Thanks...found some strong advice on the web about attempting to both drill out and even push grease into sealed ball joints. I'm not going down that road.