Outside tire wear/movement of wheel when hands placed at 12 and 6....whats loose?

[emmotto]

How does one get the grease into the ball? Is it light enough to flow into the same hole you add oil into?


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[Jim-ME]

The one shot that I used was Rover and it came in a tube that came to a point. I just cut the end off and squeezed the tube into the oil fill putting one tube per swivel ball.
Jim

[o2batsea]

Meh, bazillions of Rovers running around with the gooey grease in the swivels and it doesn't seem to hurt the railco bushing.

[NC_Mule]

At some point the gooey grease was an official Land Rover conversion. I have stickers, one on each side, on my fire wall each with a serial number and Land Rover logo explaining that the swivel balls have been converted from oil.
Already burned thru 3 rolls of paper towels cleaning the grease out so I'm going to stick to the oil route. Doubt I'll get my swivel ball by the weekend, was hoping to have the truck back on the road by then.

[o2batsea]

A 5 gallon bucket and a couple gallons of diesel makes a very effective parts washer. No paper towels need die.

[NC_Mule]

Man diesel is a great idea. Brake cleaner is too expensive to use as a parts cleaner.

[NC_Mule]

Yes Sir!

Put everything back together, and had a successful test ride. The Mule is already back to work, hauled about 1,000 lbs of fire wood this afternoon. Going to start researching tires and get those on. Think I'm going to have the shop pull the old tires off so I can paint the wheels then put the new ones on once I get the wheels looking nice.
This was my first swivel ball rebuild. A few notes for the next noobie.
1) Swivel balls are not handed (left/right) but they do have a top and bottom. When my new one came in I jumped on it and installed the railco and bottom race. As soon as I torqued down the steering arm bolts the swivel would lock up even with the railco bolts finger tight. After about an hour thinking about it I broke it back down and compaired it to my bad swivel. Thats when I noticed a slight difference top and bottom. Luckly I was able to get the new railco and bottom race back out and switched. As soon as I did that all was well. I was advised to use a brass drift as it's softer then the metal your banging on. Think thats what allowed me to make the change with out any damage to my new parts.
2) If your ball joints spin and will not tighten up hit them with the impact, it spins faster then the shaft can and zips the bolt right on.

Thats it, here is a pic of my work. Thanks for the help. Next is a new radiator and full exhaust.

[o2batsea]

Oooo, pretty! For the next week anyway...

[Skeeball]

I plan on using Corn head grease when I get my swivel balls back in