You use a needle fitting on the grease gun to puncture the rubber boots. I just did it on mine (10K mile) and I can tell you it doesn't take very much grease.

 

needle attachment for your grease gun, available at any autoparts store or hardware store. Push the needle through the rubber boot and apply the grease. Takes about 5 minutes to do all four.

 

Can you elaborate on that deesil?

 

by "key knowledge" I don't mean a PHD or anything. It's just not one of those
things that you can pull off the wheel and start taking crap off and figuring it out as you go. Even taking crap off can be a big part of the challenge, some things in that front end do NOT play well with others.

It would take one hell of a write up with lots of pics to really get into it. The service manual does a decent job of illustrating it I think.

 

to put it another way, it would be highly recommended to have someone help that has done it before, not necessarily a 3rd gen dodge, just any 4wd front end straight axle or even an independent front end. That kind of input would be invaluable for a first go at it. Besides an extra pair of hands would be very helpful

 

just curious thanks. well if i ever need balljoints i will let you know how it goes by a guy thats never done it before.......LOL

 

Cool, thanks. Do you try and hit the same puncture everytime so it doesn't start to look like swiss cheese after awhile? Or is the hole so small that it won't matter?

 

I just had mine done at an independent shop that does nothing but front end. They replaced all 4 ball joints and (I think) the pitman arm. Pretty much every part that did any work in the steering. They used Moog replacements all around. Total out the door was close to $1600. Some of the various bars and rods only come with the ball joint pre-attached so you have to replace the whole thing when just the ball joint is bad.

Shop rate in my area runs about $100 an hour and they charged me for 5 hours labor, plus parts, plus an alignment. They said that while my truck didn't require a bunch of heating and beating to come apart, they have had to spend hours on some trucks so they charge 5 hours of labor and eat it on the rusty ones and do it faster on some trucks.

 

the delar will ony put in non greaseable joint's mine are to be done under war. and said i would by the good one the dealer said NO only stock parts.so i guess in 30k more i will do it right....Go GREASEABLE.