Just had 4 new OEM ball joints installed. Wanted the greasable kind but the dealer told me as they were replaced under warranty that they had to be the non-greasable original type. Told me he hates the non-greasable ball joints. I have an idea to modify these new ball joints to greasable and want to run it by some of you to see if it is feasable.
I intend to drill a small hole (.125") in the top of each ball joint. This is in the pressed in sheet metal cap. Of course will go in only as far as necessary to get the point of the drill thru. Then fab a metal cover of about .040-.050" thickness the same size as each of the pressed in caps and weld a small boss to this fabbed cover. Will dome this new cover slightly to match the OEM curve. The boss will be drilled and tapped for a grease nipple. The bottom ball joints will have to have a 90 degree boss due to the tight clearance to the u-joints. This fabbed part will then be JB Welded to the top of each ball joint. I am going for the max area of the fabbed cover to give the JB Weld more bonding area.
So what do you think, will this idea work?
Do any of you have any old OEM non greasable ball joints that you can cut open and see where the grease would go to if I do this? My one fear is the the pressure of the grease will pop the factory cover off the ball joints.

 

Well, By doing these mods they won't cover them under warranty again but that is ok....I just put a set of greasable Moog's on the uppers and I was gonna put greasable Spicers on the Bottom but decided that the stock lowers when replaced were still ok after 130 k miles, The tops were less than ok. ks

 

Almost all new vehicles come with non-greasable ball joints. When we get a vehicle in at work with some non-greasable joints, I just poke a small hole in the rubber boot and use a needle tip for my grease gun and fill them up. I have done this on all my vehicles with non greaseable ball joints and have never had a problem.

 

Been there done that. it works great, as long as you don;t go wild with the hole.