I get so sad watching this because when i bought my 06 ram this is one of the first things i wanted to do, but of course the seller knew how to hide issues and i ended up spending 20k on an engine replacement after driving it for just 2 hours. Eventually ill recoup and buy a set 😂🤞🏽
It's hard to say - we also drive about 50% gravel every day. We keep ours greased at all times, that is the key to having these last the longest. We have seen oilfield and welding trucks go about 300,000 kms (186,000 mi) before needing a rebuild. We are at 240,000 kms (150,000 mi) and we haven't rebuilt ours in the 2003 3500 dually. If you have a stiff knuckle issue and don't fix it with a different upper pin and race (or a whole new knuckle), they require more grease intervals and they wear out faster so you could be rebuilding around 200,000 kms (125,000 mi) or as little as 60,000- 100,000 kms (37,000-62,000 mi) if you have really bad knuckles. It all comes down to checking the stiffness of the knuckle after ball joint install and before greasing to make sure the knuckle moves freely back and forth (we have another youtube video on this all about stiff knuckles if you want to watch) ua-cam.com/video/bpyPSTvOtyI/v-deo.html If you have a nice free knuckle and keep the ball joints greased you could get probably up to 400,000 kms (248,000 mi) out of them before a rebuild is needed.
Great question ,Sky! We like to use a grease with a 5% moly in it. It is usually black in colour and thick. Any high-impact bearing grease works well. Because we are in canada we have a climate that can go from super cold to super hot so we prefer a synthetic grease for our conditions. Any grease is better than no grease but some work better than others. For longest lasting parts, we recommend topping off the grease at every oil change. Premature wear of parts is almost always attributed to a lack of grease.
The ball joints that Sky has on that truck were literally pieced together using raw steel "unperfect blems" that were thrown in the scrap bin. Basically they didn't pass our Quality inspection to sell (we have very little tolerances that we allow on our products so if it's 0.0001 out, we toss it), but they were still "good enough" to test with. We like to do a lot of testing here, to see how the parts hold up when there are different factors taken into consideration. In his case, he also has bad knuckles because it's a 2006 and those are some of the worst knuckles to come out of Dodge's manufacturing facilities. So he put those parts in with no boots to see how they hold up with just grease. The bad knuckle of course was an issue and he had stiff steering the whole time but he's a trooper and wanted to do it for our R&D process so he ran those to see what the internals would look like after driving on them using raw, uncoated, non-nitrided 4140 HTSR steel.
I get so sad watching this because when i bought my 06 ram this is one of the first things i wanted to do, but of course the seller knew how to hide issues and i ended up spending 20k on an engine replacement after driving it for just 2 hours. Eventually ill recoup and buy a set 😂🤞🏽
So usually how many km’s before a rebuild? I’d say I’m 50% gravel roads and 50% pavement. With about 2500lbs in the back at all times.
It's hard to say - we also drive about 50% gravel every day. We keep ours greased at all times, that is the key to having these last the longest. We have seen oilfield and welding trucks go about 300,000 kms (186,000 mi) before needing a rebuild. We are at 240,000 kms (150,000 mi) and we haven't rebuilt ours in the 2003 3500 dually.
If you have a stiff knuckle issue and don't fix it with a different upper pin and race (or a whole new knuckle), they require more grease intervals and they wear out faster so you could be rebuilding around 200,000 kms (125,000 mi) or as little as 60,000- 100,000 kms (37,000-62,000 mi) if you have really bad knuckles.
It all comes down to checking the stiffness of the knuckle after ball joint install and before greasing to make sure the knuckle moves freely back and forth (we have another youtube video on this all about stiff knuckles if you want to watch) ua-cam.com/video/bpyPSTvOtyI/v-deo.html
If you have a nice free knuckle and keep the ball joints greased you could get probably up to 400,000 kms (248,000 mi) out of them before a rebuild is needed.
@@EMFEVO okay, yeah maintenance is everything. I’m greasing every 5000km, I was just curious.
What kind of grease should I use after this ?
Great question ,Sky! We like to use a grease with a 5% moly in it. It is usually black in colour and thick. Any high-impact bearing grease works well. Because we are in canada we have a climate that can go from super cold to super hot so we prefer a synthetic grease for our conditions. Any grease is better than no grease but some work better than others. For longest lasting parts, we recommend topping off the grease at every oil change. Premature wear of parts is almost always attributed to a lack of grease.
"I also don't have BJ boots on mine"
Huh? I *know* you guys aren't in sunny California...
Is that just because that's a yard truck?
The ball joints that Sky has on that truck were literally pieced together using raw steel "unperfect blems" that were thrown in the scrap bin. Basically they didn't pass our Quality inspection to sell (we have very little tolerances that we allow on our products so if it's 0.0001 out, we toss it), but they were still "good enough" to test with. We like to do a lot of testing here, to see how the parts hold up when there are different factors taken into consideration.
In his case, he also has bad knuckles because it's a 2006 and those are some of the worst knuckles to come out of Dodge's manufacturing facilities. So he put those parts in with no boots to see how they hold up with just grease. The bad knuckle of course was an issue and he had stiff steering the whole time but he's a trooper and wanted to do it for our R&D process so he ran those to see what the internals would look like after driving on them using raw, uncoated, non-nitrided 4140 HTSR steel.
lol sorry dude you would not be working on my truck, first thing you shouldve done is CLEAN all that crap off! wire brush dude!