I have done some research concerning ball joints. It seems that there are three types. The first the non greaseable original units. The second an exact replacement but with grease fittings, and the third the heavy duty unit which has larger bolt holes but is considered a replacement. I was told by Lynch that Am general has said that there is no problem using the heavy duty joint in older applications. When they went to the heavy duty joints they changed all four upper control arms. The joint now goes in a full circle receptacle instead of the open ended receptacle.

Back to the size of the bolt holes. When upgraded to the heavy duty ball joint you use the older style bolts this causes play in the balljoint. You will not detect it by hand but when you put 4000lbs against there is going to be movement. It just does not sound right to me. I asked about drilling out the holes on the control arm so as to put larger bolts in so there would be no play and was told that there is not enough material to drill it out because it would weaken it too much. Has anyone else tried to get info on this? I dont want to be 1000 miles from the nearest service center and have a balljoint fail again or even worse a control arm.

James Houser