so a couple weeks back i posted a thread about an annoying noise coming from my driver's side wheel well...it turned out to be a busted ball joint....everything is taken care of now, but i was talking to a fellow cl-s owner and he was telling me that i might be going thru them like crazy b/c of the drop on my car , is that true?

 

How far is it dropped? Things wear a little faster when lowered/modified but it's not like they should be going out every 5k miles or anything...

 

dropped 2 in...i didn't think it'd be anything too drastic, just made me think a little bit

 

What was the crazy noise you were hearing???

 

ugly squeaking noise when i turned my wheel or went over any type of bump...i was hearing it before i dropped the car....just got it back from the dealer w/ new rear brakes and a new ball joint 450 beans

 

wow you got raped dude. ball joints take like 30 min per side to change. the parts are less than 100 bucks. you coulda done it yourself. rear brakes are even easier! i have a really bad clanking noise coming from the driver front. i wonder if it could be my balljoints.

 

yeah, guess it looks like i DID get raped...bastards didnt even cuddle after! ha, good luck with your noises

 

if you're some kind of mechanic superman maybe it'll take 30 minutes. ball joints can be had cheap about $30-40 for one. But it will definitely take more time than that. Need air tools and the ball joint has to be either pressed out and in or punched out and then in. I saw my mechanic do this and maybe he is not the best mechanic but still there is a lot of shit to take apart and when most of the bolts are rusty it'll be even worse. I am more or less mechanically inclined but I don't think I would attempt doing this in my driveway without proper tools.

cltypeSLOW, also replace your sway bar bushings. I got rid of all the annoying clanking noises when replaced. I am so extremely happy now. Sooo quite. Drives like new.

 

it only took me about 45 minutes to do both sides. excluding the time it took for the machine shop to press in the new balljoints for both sides.

 

How many bushings are there for are sway bars and how much roughly did it cost you? Also, how long did it take to change them?

 

there are 4 bushings, 2 front, 2 rear. they're like $4-5 each CDN. half an hour to do all on a lift. air tools make life much easier

did you work in a Formula 1 pit stop before ???

I dunno, maybe my mechanic made it look hard or just naturally slow.

 

i dunno its really not that hard. i really did both sides in less than an hour. its only a couple bolts. the tools needed can be rented at an autoparts store. air is deff not needed for this task.

thanks for the tip about the sways. i will look at it this weekend its getting worse and worse every day.

 

are we talking about the lower ball joint that sits inside the knuckle? if so can you quickly describe how you did it?

 

how i did it? take off axle nut, take out strut wishbone bolt, pull tierod end, take off lower balljoint nut, take off upper balljoint nut, slide axle out of the hub. it seriously takes 15 minutes if you have the right tools. air tools and a ballpeen hammer to loosen the balljoints. i have replaced all of my balljoints two times so far. once at 70k miles and again at 140k miles.