Front axel hub ball joints, adding greese fittings

[Guest Lenny]

The front ball joints on the front axel hubs, as you know, do not allow greesing. This can easily be corrected by adding greese fittings. See picture. The hex cap on each of the 4 joints is spot welded on. It threads into the ball body holding the ball and stem into place. It's a pretty sloppy joint to begin with but still can use regular greesing until you get around to replacing them with better ones. Using a small grinder with a cutoff wheel works good to cut the spots loose. You could saw them also I suspose. Once the welds are cut, there may be a bit of weld left holding the cap from turning. If it's not too much, you would rather not grind too deep, you can get the cap to turn using a center punch or kind of a dull chisel to hammer at the corner of the hex. You may need to grind a little more if it stays tight. Be careful not to get too aggrssive and knock the corners off. Once loose, use a visegrip to get ahold of it to remove it. Install greese fitting and reassemble and finally respot the hex in place. I would think that if you don't have a welder, you could clean it up good and use locktite or possibly wire it but I haven't tried these aproaches.

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/24019...104282158dpzOsj

Lenny