Just had upper and lower ball joints installed today and seems as thought the steering does not want to rebound or return to center after a turn. Any ideas?

 

Forgot to mention that I put the Carli ball joints upper and Moog's lower.

 

Have you gotten a wheel alignment done yet? If is out far enough it can give that effect you stated. just an idea.

 

Just finished installing carli uppers and moog lowers also. Also did the new possibly defective upgraded steering and i'm going to get it roughly aligned in he driveway and take it for a spin today. I will report back.

Usually no return to center is because you don't have enough caster. 4-5deg positive caster is what i try and run, with cross caster of .3 (less on left to compensate for road crown). That should not have been affected by ball joints though, caster is adjusted with eccentric on lower control arm. I guess new ball joints could change your camber slightly, but it can't be adjusted unless you have the moog adjustable uppers. Camber should be slightly negative and the same on both sides. If bj's were not seated all the way it could throw off camber (or maybe caster slightly), but hopefully that is not your case.

If you get it alligned ask them to max out the caster!!

 

Sounds like the new joints are too tight. To some extent, it is just a byproduct of having new joints, but the condition can be worsened by not following the torquing procedure during installation. Breaking them loose and retorquing will sometimes help, sometimes not. Aftermarket joints seem to cause this condition more severely that OEM ones also, as the OEM ones are a bit more sloppy, even when new, which really isn't a problem. Take it back to where you had it done, to see if they have any recommendations. If not, you may have to wait until they wear in to see if the condition diminishes.

 

hey torquefan, good point.

so during install i always torque lower to ~35ft/lbs, then upper to ~70ft/lbs, then retorque lower to 150ft/lbs. Is that the correct procedure? but how does overtighntening the knuckle onto the stud put a load on the balljoint, or is really the balance between the upper and lower, like overtightening the upper could pull the lower stud up putting load on the top of the ball/socket, making it "tight" and hard to turn??

I've heard the carlis do have a bit of a break in period, where they actually wear a little putting a fine polish on the moving parts.

 

They realligned it. I told them to make caster +5. They maxed it out but could not get it to +5. I took it back this morning and they rechecked everything and took sterring assembly apart. The wheel turns freely and easily unless the control arm to the gear box connected, then it becomes real tight. They said that it seemed the gear box was binding. I had them adjest the tension srew on the box both ways and it did not help. I can turn the wheels easily, don't feel any binding at all. Its feels tight but no binding. Could be the old ball joints were so sloppy they were masking a defective steering box. My luck. I will drive it a bit to see if it loosens up. I plan on doing sterring assembly upgrade to it as well, just wasn't counting on throughing a gear box in the mix.

 

how long have you had your dss on? my box is leaking agian after i did the seals and put a dss on, was hoping that would make it last a long while but now i'm going to have to go check mine again. man, that would not be fun to have to pull the pitman arm off again to swap gear boxes...

 

dss has been on for about 1 1/2 years. i found a gear box, but am wating to c what happens.

 

i had the same issue when new ball joints were installed. they just needed to be broken in I guess, I took it back to the shop and thats what they told me. so I drove it a few days and all is well.

 

Yep, sounds like the proper torque procedure, and you're right about the problem stemming from the "balance" between the upper and lower. If you look at the setup, the ball joints are mounted with a fixed distance between the two of them, set by the end yoke they are mounted in. The knuckle that attaches to their studs is also rigid, and the distance is fixed. So, if the upper and lower joint are torqued improperly you are effectively putting tension on them, causing binding. I recall a bulletin existing in the mid nineties addressing this concern on new trucks. It outlined measuring the force required to turn the knuckle, unloaded, with a fish scale, and suggested breaking loose the ball joints' tapers then retorquing them. I've done this procedure many times. Sometimes retorquing gives good results, sometimes not. Aftermarket joints just seem to be more prone to this. Working on these trucks for years, I really can't say that aftermarket joints have a far greater lifespan- greaseable or not.