My lower ball joints are out on my Maxima and upon reading through the Haynes manual it says that its recommended to change out the control arms as well due to the integral duty the balljoint has on the control arm....Is this true or can I get away with just swapping out the ball joints?!

-LIEB-

 

You can press in new ball-joints... all said and done, that will cost you about 50 bucks per side... OR you can buy new LCAs off Ebay for 70 bucks a side that includes a brand new ball-joint and bushings... and just swap out the entire LCA.

People have done both without too much fuss.

 

Okay, I appreciate the help but are the eBay LCAs good quality or something made from old Pepsi cans?! And I suppose I need an alignment afterwards?

-LIEB-

 

The Ebay LCAs have been good so far (I have had mine on almost 8 months/10k).

If you really want to give your front end an overhaul - look up seller bestsuspension on Ebay.. he has a set that you can buy that includes both LCAs, inner/outer tie-rod ends and swaybar end-links... I replaced ALL of those on my car at the same time and highly recommend it - the total cost of all those parts is $250 (IIRC).


Yes - you need an alignment.

 

Sweet action Jackson! Thanks for the help...I'll look into that too!

 

Also - look up orger "nick" - we did mine together - he did a nice writeup (follow his webpage link to cardomain) of all the work. (LCAs and tie-rods).

I think the link is also in the stickies...

 

nick has a great write up, I'll post the link (I have it bookmarked at home).

Fr33way just got a new ball joint pressed in for $10. I would suggest a new control arm so you would have the new bushing also. I can say that these bushing are tough, I had to buy a junkyard control arm off of a 95, and when it got taken off the control arm was very rusty and I thought the bushing and ball joint would be crap, but the bushing was strong and same with ball joint.

If the cost of pressing in a new ball joint exceeds $70, just buy the whole lca off of ebay and swap it out.
______________________________________________
On a side note: When swapping control arms, and you have to take out that stubborn bar, I wonder if anyone has tried taking that off while its still on the car? Unbolt that 27mm bolt, and try pulling it then while you have the weight of the car to help get it out. . . .Hmmm . . .

 

This should answer all of your questions. I just received shipment of the LCAs and tie rod/bushings from eBay. I'l llet you know what I think. Install will be in about 2-3 weeks.

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=451274