So I have 182,000 miles(!) on the factory ball joints in my 2003 Ram 2500 CTD, and it's time for new ones. After much research, I have learned that I will NOT use Moog, and I don't want to used knurled joints. I want to use the McQuay Norris extremes, but my understanding is the lowers are knurled (but the uppers are smooth). I obviously understand Carli and Dynatrac make the best joints, but I don't want to spend that much. I believe the McQuay Norris joints are good, as Sage Carli himself recommended those before he developed his own.

So, my question - since the uppers take most of the abuse and the lowers support the entire gravity load, how would McQuay Norris uppers paired with OEM lowers work? I've read horror stories of Carli uppers paired with Moog lowers, but that was completely the fault of the Moog lowers.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Honestly,holdout for a few months and go with Dynatracs or Carli's. It's a miserable job and you don't want to do it again.
A local Dodge performance shop I use has installed dozens of either brand and never had one come back. Several of the customers beat on their rigs in the desert with 35's+

 

Why holdout for a few months? Is there something changing with both brands?

I have replaced both of my unit hub bearings and one front axle u-joint in the past few weeks, so at least the war to get the hubs off has been fought and won - what a pain those are to get off! I anti-siezed the hell out of everything so they come off easy when I get around to doing ball joints.

The fact that the factory ball joints lasted this long almost is enough to convince me to just replace them with another set of OEM joints. The MQN upper + OEM lower was just an idea I had that could possibly extend the service life of both joints beyond what I already got out of the originals. The upper joint takes on most of the abuse, and when it fails, the abuse is diverted to the lower and then that one fails. Putting the MQN on top should extend the life of the lower joint I would think.

 

I didn't know if finances were an issue.

 

I got 46,000 miles out of the factory ball joints... So I knew the OEM ones WERE NOT the way I was going to go. I went with the Dynatrac ones, front end seems better than it was new...

 

How many miles on the Dynatrac's? Since those are $150 less than the Carli's, they are little easier to justify.

 

I replaced the OEs at 200,000 miles when I rebuilt the whole frontend. They still had less than .040" vertical play. I went with XRF's (the old greaseable lowers). They are still tighter at 140,000 than the originals were new. I give them a shot or two of grease every 7500 at an oil change. The knurling on the XRFs was pretty tight. I got the first one in but the interference on the second one was even more, so I just chucked it up in a lathe and buzzed off most of the knurling. It is helpful if you have the tools to measure the hole in your knuckle and the OD of the joint you are going to put in. I wish I would have measured on the first. A cold deep freeze is your friend when working with an interference fit!

 

You do well with bj's. Do a search of XRF's on these heavy diesels.

 

I thought I saw a few posts where the XRF's were failing on people rather quickly...? Maybe I'm mistaken

 

I'm not sold on the XRF's. Partly because they are knurled and partly because the 50/50 mixed reviews I am reading about them - it's like they are either really good or really bad, depending on the individual experience.

I'll probably end up ponying up for the Dynatrac's or Carli's I suppose.....