I have an '86 Trooper and I've been slowly bringing her back. The latest projects have been suspension bushing and CV joint overhaul. Had the rear springs reconditioned and a leaf added and replaced the worn-all-the-way-through shackle and frame bushings. Vast improvement in driveability and cessassion of squeaky chirps from rear.
Then I decided to redo the front suspension...
Everything seemed to go fine, except that the new lower ball joints are about the thickness of the CV boot rubber away from the CV joint. Needless to say, this is not good and causes the boot to get knocked off when in 4wd. The new lower ball joints are an autozone product (made in japan and sold as duralast) and are an exact match, except for a square-ish raised portion on the top of the ball joint where there is a grease fitting. The old ball joints had a sort of raised area, but it was lower profile and rounded and I didn't have any clearance issues.
I was hoping to get some advice from someone who knows these front suspension systems a little more intimately than myself. I have ordered another set of ball joints from Beck-Arnley (I believe that's it) and autozone will refund me for the ball joints that I have already installed.
Thanks in advance for any advice. I have driven the trooper since replacing all the suspension components (except lower c-arm bushings which will be replaced along with the torsion bars sometime in the future) and it drives like a new truck. I am psyched about the performance, but I do not want to drive it too much and recontaminate the outer cv joints which were in excellent condition and just recently cleaned and repacked with grease, new boot, etc...

Lower ball joints mount on the bottom of the a-arm, sounds like you have them on top of the a-arm if they are interfering with the cv boot.

They physically fit either way but I believe correct is under the a-arm.

Steve

While Steve is correct, I thihnk we are talking about the "domed" part that extends past the end of the lower a-arm.

I am guessing they may have mis-crossed a part to rebuild from or used a casting that has room for a zerk when there is not room there for one.

Another observation is while that space is close, (and I have almost an extra 1/2" of diameter added to my outer joints, the relationship is such that it does not change during suspension movement.

Got any pictures?

Michael

I just put lower ball joints on my 90 trooper , and they fit great , no clearance issues at all.Thjey also have the zirk fitting on them for greasing.Not sure if the pics show them too well , but feel free to look at the pics of my project , it does have pics of all the front end stuff I did , lower ball joints , uppers , tie rods , etc.

I bet Michael is correct. When I replaced my lower BJs,one of the part books showed that all troopers had the same upper and lower BJs. I discovered that lower BJs for 88-94 (10 b0lt 1st gen and "narrow" 2nd gen) are shorter than 95-2002 (widetrack 2nd gen). The uppers are the same.

I had an '86 Trooper with an identical problem when I replaced the CV boot (which had higher profile clamps). (It was over 10 years ago, but I may have replaced the lower ball joint at the same time).

I considered trying a lower profile clamp for the CV boot, but never got around to it. (I didn't drive my '86 for long after having that problem - a blown head gasket caused me to park it).

I got a different set of ball joints, and now there is no clearance issue. They are lower-profile and there is enough room for the boot clamp. FYI the front suspension changed from 87- on. The 86 and below front suspension is totally different, and most parts are not interchangeable. Funny thing about the new ball joints is that they both came from beck arnley, in the same box and part number, but they were different. One was painted black, the other not.. one had 2 grease fittings, the other had none.. one had circlips holding the boot on, the other had springs... but they both worked out just fine and I can now take turns at over 2 miles an hour and hit potholes in the road with out fear of losing it! Took her off roading a little bit this weekend and she did fine....
My father's old minivan is starting to crap out and he is, as I write this, transferring the title of a '90 Trooper xs to his name. I hope doesn't mind when I swap out the interior.... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/evil.gif" alt="" />