[T3] Ball Joints

[Brent Bottolfson]

On 3/9/12 9:02 PM, Jim Adney wrote:
> On 9 Mar 2012 at 12:59, Chris Sheridan wrote:
>
>> At this point the ball joints have 42 years of wear on them, they may
>> have a few more, but then I'm not willing to find out. Since I've had
>> this car for 12 years, and intend to keep it until I die, or give it to
>> my daughter in a few years when she turns 16, I have no problem
>> replacing any and everything. my job may end anytime, and while I have
>> the $$ and the opportunity, I will bring all the problems I can on
>> myself now, resolve them and move on.
> By doing this, you're buying into the concept that new is better than
> old. If you could still buy OE quality stuff, you'd be right, but in
> many cases the new parts you'll be installing will probably be of
> poorer quality than the old used parts you're throwing away.
>
I think the problem we run into with re-using the old ball joints is in 
the boots.  When I took all my OE ball joints out, every one of them had 
severe rot/cracks/tears of the rubber boot.  I've seen a set of boots 
pop up in theSamba classifieds once, but they had already sold when I 
sent the guy an email.

I kept all my OE ball joints and cleaned them up really good.  Then I 
installed some boots from some cheapo ball joints, but they don't fit 
right.  I didn't want to install them and have grease squeezing out of 
them because they don't fit the top shaft right.

Someone mentioned making repop boots with a mesh scrim awhile back in 
Type3 forum, but I don't remember who.

I ended up using NOS ball joints, but they were hard to find and 
expensive.  The Meyle ball joints that are available now seem to have a 
pretty good rep.