Upper and lower front ball joints.......

[sae70]

While carrying out routine spannering on the truck I've noticed that the near side lower ball joint gaiter and the off side upper ball joint gaiter are both split! I'm fairly certain that the joints are fine, so I'm wondering about just replacing the boots. Has anyone else done this before and if so do you know what size boots they are as there's a bewildering array of sizes available! ToyoDiy list a new boot being available for the upper joint, but not the lower?! I wonder if this is because the lower is not replaceable? Anyone know the answer?

 

[sae70]

Has anyone got one off in their shed that they could measure the boot size for me?

Measuring the outside as best I can of each while in situ the bottoms are about 40 to 45mm and the tops are about 25 to 30mm, but that's measuring from the outside of the boots and I forgot to measure th heights!

here a good selection of available boots http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-X-SLIDE...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item2a2ddd1633

 

[J66P]

i will go look in my scrap bin as I changed all mine recently

 

[Ben]

I've changed boots a few times Steven.

Usually because I've split them getting the ball joint apart.

Dead easy to do, just carefully turn and pull the metal ring off the bottom. Then put some new grease in and put the new boot on.

 

[sae70]

i will go look in my scrap bin as I changed all mine recently

That would be great if you still have them knocking about Gary and you could get me a more accurate measurement of the top and bottom holes on each of the boots and their height. It would be good to be able to get some new boots ordered before stripping the truck down to reduce the down time. Unfortunately it the lower ball joint on the left side and the upper ball joint on the right side, so both sides in bits!!!

 

[sae70]

I've changed boots a few times Steven.

Usually because I've split them getting the ball joint apart.

Dead easy to do, just carefully turn and pull the metal ring off the bottom. Then put some new grease in and put the new boot on.

Hi there Ben I do hope that they will be relatively straight forward to do as you've described. To be honest new joints are not massively expensive if purchased from Milner or RoughTrax, but not as cheap as a couple of rubber boots. Just need to get the correct size sorted

 

[Ben]

On the subject of new joints...............................

I need to replace the 4 on my 70. I like the look of the ones with the grease nipples on the bottom as then atleast I can give them a fresh squirt of grease every so often.

But then I'm wary of cheap after market ones. (which the grease nipple ones seem to be)

So I was thinking of buying genuine Toyota ones and drilling and tapping a thread in the bottom and fitting a grease nipple.

Even if I don't end up fitting grease nipples, I'm still very tempted to get genuine.

 

[clivehorridge]

After one of my steering ball joints failed on the 80 (the one that connects the arm from the steering box to the tie rod to the wheel) I'm wary of anything cheap and nasty. I'm assured by the previous owner that the failed joint was genuine Toyota, but it seized up nevertheless and snapped the taper pin clean off the ball. Luckily I wasn't traveling at speed when it happened. (my thread "Steering fail").

At least a greasable type would probably have prevented that from happening, so it's not such a bad idea, even if the joint itself is of a lesser quality. I regularly check the joints for play with a bar, but of course there's never going to be any play in a seized joint!

 

[Beau]

When I replaced mine I bought one from Europarts which wasn't specific for the collie but a universal one... The thickness of the genuine toyota ones were much more than the replacements, but with mine sticking on road 99% of the time there was no need to go over board and they cost under £15 for the pair.