Ball Joints and Tie-rods ends for a Jeep TJ

redrockrover

Registered User
Location
South Jordan, UT
I bought a new to me Jeep LJ. It is the Rubicon model so it has the Dana 44 up front. I need to do new ball joints and tie-rods ends. One of the ball joints on the passenger side is bad and the tie rod ends have some excessive play in them.

Who makes good ball joints and tie rod ends, or are they all really just the same? This is a very mild jeep with only 33's right now and maybe 35's in the future. I don't plan on wheeling it very hard, but do want to take it out and have fun with it. What would you recommend I replace them with?

Thanks,

Russ
 

moab_cj5

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
When I had my JK, I put Synergy ball joints and tie rod ends on it. They are a fair amount of money, but they are high quality. I read good things about Teraflex ball joints too, but don't have any experience with them. I would definitely go with beef, even if you are only running 33's. It would suck to put weak stuff on it and then redo it in a short time from excessive wear and tear of crawling through the rocks...
 

DAA

Well-Known Member
I would (did) just use Spicers for the ball joints. Basically OEM replacements. I got them from Amazon.

My factory TRE's went away for Currie steering about 90,000 miles ago. The Currie stuff is starting show it's age. Expensive to refresh. Not decided what I'm going to do there. If staying with the inverted Y, Currie is a good upgrade though. Mine has been through quite a bit for a long time and many miles and is just showing normal wear.

Mine's on 35's and sees tons of dirt use. Though not a whole lot of hard wheeling - but does see some of that every year too.

- DAA
 

Omgbecki

Well-Known Member
Location
Ogden
I spent a long time researching ball joints and ended up getting Synergy ones. I read a lot of good things about them. I don't have personal experience with them because I was chasing down my death wobble and found out it was my TRE so I just have them in a box. I had the spicer replacement beforehand and I can't really complain. They did their job but got worn out early by the trails so I figured a little extra more money for the upgrade.

Personally I look at the cost of replacing parts and see how much more for a upgrade. I think you would be fine going with Spicer parts. But if you are replacing TRE I would look into upgrading the whole part. Spend a little extra now so you don't have to later.
 
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