These 2 lower ball joints I bought from SoCal Imports are not like any I have ever seen. The stud will move in any direction the full travel. Fore and aft as you would expect, but also side to side, any direction. I know that Typically there is an internal slot that requires the joint to be installed a certain way. Not so for these 2 units. It only has the one notch as well. It is SoCal part number 131405371G. Listed as GERMAN and made by TRW. Other than the fact that it has no zerk hole at all it looks well made. Anybody seen this type before? Anybody ever use them with no issue?

Oh, the picture on the SoCal website shows the 2 notches.

http://www.socalautoparts.com/trw-ball-joint-bug-ghia-66-77-lower-p-12634.html

The balljoint for lowered front ends is heavily clearance to prevent binding on front ends that have been dropped.

I understand that to be the case, however this wasn't listed as a balljoint for lowered front ends as such and I didn't specify the lowered type. Nevertheless I suppose it could be. Heavily clearanced sure does describe it though.

I am going to use it and report here how it turns out.

They are doing you a BIG favor. All the stock balljoints are made far too tight and bind when they are pressed into the arms, giving you a non moving suspension. It doesn't matter if they are TRW, Moog or white box parts, all the stock, non lowered balljoints are junk.

brad

Excellent news. Good to go then.

These actually have a good movement. Firm but free if you know what I mean. I did see a LOT of posts about bad ball joints when I was researching what to get.

I have some press time scheduled tomorrow on my neighbors press. I made some fixtures up from various sized leftover DOM tubing from past projects.

...and thanks.

Good luck. when I was doing a lot of these, I came up with a way that was fastest for me. Use it if you want. I would cut the cap off (where the grease zirk would be) the balljoint (the bottom is crimped in) I would push out the spud and all the grease and teflon bushing. I would then cut a slit in the housing with a torch (a sawzall would work too) being carefull  not to cut the arm. then I would knoch the housing out with a hammer and punch and press the new balljoint in. The hardest part of ht job is getting the old one out if you don;t have a factory tool, pressing them in is easy. This method was pretty fast and by cutting crimp that held the cap on out and getting rid of the guts I didn't have the acrid (and harmfull) smoke to deal with from the teflon liner. You can just use a grinder to cut the crimp off if you don't have a torch.

brad

I installed the ball joints yesterday using my neighbors 60,000(!) lb press. They went in like butter.

Brad; Thanks for the tip, I had the old ones out already. They were bone dry and rattled around in the cups so getting the ball stud out was easy. I welded a bead around the inside of the cup and that loosened up the grip. a few easy taps and out they came. I cleaned up the inner surface and they were ready to press.

Sounds like it all worked out. I think you will like those clearance joints. I use them all the time.

By the way...my local machine shop charges me $10 per arm to press out the old and press in the new.