Currie control arms creaking a lot, time to rebuild?

@psrivats since you laughed at my previous 'nope' response.... do you tear your engine down for preventive checks when it's not giving any signs of a problem? Same with my control arms. When they start giving any indication of a problem is when they'll be taken apart and rebuilt. But without any indication of any problem whatsoever I'm sure as hell not tearing them down to inspect them. Not to mention my present TJ has never been my daily driver so its Johnny Joints don't have that many miles on them.
 
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@psrivats since you laughed at my previous 'nope' response.... do you tear your engine down for preventive checks when it's not giving any signs of a problem? Same with my control arms. When they start giving any indication of a problem is when they'll be taken apart and rebuilt. But without any indication of any problem whatsoever I'm sure as hell not tearing them down to inspect them.

Your engine has a bunch of sensors to help determine when things might be wrong. I'd say it's worth a check since you tell people JJs don't need service after 12 years - worst case is you're correct and can show us how well they age.
 
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@psrivats since you laughed at my previous 'nope' response.... do you tear your engine down for preventive checks when it's not giving any signs of a problem? Same with my control arms. When they start giving any indication of a problem is when they'll be taken apart and rebuilt. But without any indication of any problem whatsoever I'm sure as hell not tearing them down to inspect them. Not to mention my present TJ has never been my daily driver so its Johnny Joints don't have that many miles on them.

Apples and Oranges, Jerry.

If it were my rig, I would be definitely curious after 12 years. Even if I did not go offroad in mud and clay and if my Jeep wasn't a DD. Your experience with JJs is very different than what most people have shared and that fact alone would make me re-think if I could be incorrect.

My laughter was more at your brief single word response, and my amusement that you chose to only quote part of my post - but perhaps you thought your response answered everything I was asking, and that is fine :)
 
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@psrivats since you laughed at my previous 'nope' response.... do you tear your engine down for preventive checks when it's not giving any signs of a problem? Same with my control arms. When they start giving any indication of a problem is when they'll be taken apart and rebuilt. But without any indication of any problem whatsoever I'm sure as hell not tearing them down to inspect them. Not to mention my present TJ has never been my daily driver so its Johnny Joints don't have that many miles on them.

So that means you change the oil in your motors every 12 years whether they need it or not?
 
So that means you change the oil in your motors every 12 years whether they need it or not?
Nope. I do grease the JJ mounting bolt zerks when I grease all my other zerks. Again, they give no indication of wear with any noise, clunks, rattles, etc. since they don't really have that many miles on them.
 
Ending not long ago, I conducted a bit of a secret experiment in Johnny Joint neglect. It took about 30k miles of not greasing some of mine before I began to notice a clunk in the suspension. Eventually I found that a couple of the races were worn enough that I could shake the ball around by hand when the arm wasn't loaded by the weight of the Jeep.

Once repaired, many little noises and vibrations disappeared. And the handling had noticably improved. Suggesting that these races had been worn out for quite some time before the distinct clunks that made me wonder what was wrong became evident.

My thought is that any Johnny Joint that can survive 12 years of no maintainance is a Johnny Joint that isn't being used much. Kind of like some of the forgotten knives I have sitting in drawers that somehow have stayed sharp for 15-20 years.
 
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It is the forum software doing the redirects .. has happened before, esp with Home Depot links.
I thought there was some secret shower head trick to Johnny joints and thought to myself..."my duroflex joints are way easier to maintain!"

I clicked it again and got the correct link. What weird forum behavior...
 
In case you were wondering what they look like after 10yrs in the Shenandoah Valley.
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After cleaning it with sandpaper and scotch brite. No worries here, it would ruin the sandpaper before it would start taking metal away. I’m just removing old dried up grease and dirt. You’d be surprised how much it takes to remove a few thousandths. Also wiped out the bushing with scotch brite to remove any dirt or old grease.
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Some of my JJ have 2 zeros. One on the bolt and one on the body of the joint. I’ve found that if I remove on of the 2 zeros, the joint will accept grease. In fact, I can pump the new grease in and the old grease out.
 
Some of my JJ have 2 zeros. One on the bolt and one on the body of the joint. I’ve found that if I remove on of the 2 zeros, the joint will accept grease. In fact, I can pump the new grease in and the old grease out.

That’s to prevent the bolt from getting seized in the joint, and the other fitting is to grease the balljoint/rubber socket. The fittings that grease the ball/socket are the ones that typically don’t accept any grease.
 
That’s to prevent the bolt from getting seized in the joint, and the other fitting is to grease the balljoint/rubber socket. The fittings that grease the ball/socket are the ones that typically don’t accept any grease.

Almost. There are JJs with a hole drilled through the ball into the bolt sleeve. The grease bolts are intended to fill up the sleeve and get into the races through that hole. How well that works, I have no idea.
 
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Almost. There are JJs with a hole drilled through the ball into the bolt sleeve. The grease bolts are intended to fill up the sleeve and get into the races through that hole. How well that works, I have no idea.

Not well. I’ve tried about every way to be lazy and grease the joints. The only successful ways I’ve actually gotten grease where it needs to be is by taking the thing apart.
 
Figured I’d update and show the bottom joints. Revised my tooling for the final time and I’m able to remove, clean and reassemble the joints in about 10mins each. Little trick to cleaning the uniballs, slip a bolt through them and stick it in a drill while cleaning with sandpaper and scotch brite.

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