Johnny Joint Maintenance

andy29847

TJ Enthusiast
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Howdy to all. First post since last May. Life has been busy. My 2004 TJ with Johnny Joints on the control arms squeak and groan a lot. I'm thinking the 3 year old Johnny Joints are dried out. I want to take them off, disassemble the joints, and apply some new grease. The questions I have concern getting the joints apart and putting them back together. Currie makes a good tool for this but I believe I need both the 2" and 2 1/2" tools to do the job. $225+ seems like a lot to spend for what will probably be a single use tool. I have been searching for alternative ways to do the work. All thread rod and sockets seems to be the budget way to go. I was thinking about the parts I would need to buy to try this when I recalled the ball joint/tie rod sets I used for front end work (loaned from Advanced Auto).

If you have done maintenance on your Johnny Joints, please share your tips, including how you go the joints apart.
 
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I've used both sockets and the official tool. Both work. The tool is a little nicer to use.
 
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previously used sockets and a HF shop press. hated it, total pita. now keep in mind i only have 2.5" JJ's not two sizes. but after using a trailer jack at camp to fix one after the snap ring came out on a wheeling trip (attributed to said crappy press experience) I am happy with my purchase of the tool.

Threaded rod and some machining skills could be a significant improvement over the shop press but I bought the tool instead of taking my micrometer to lowes. I don't regret it, YMMV.
 
Howdy to all. First post since last May. Life has been busy. My 2004 TJ with Johnny Joints on the control arms squeaks and groans a lot. I'm thinking the 3 year old Johnny Joints are dried out. I want to take them off, disassemble the joints, and apply some new grease. The questions I have concern getting the joints apart and putting them back together. Currie makes a good tool for this but I believe I need both the 2" and 2 1/2" tools to do the job. $225+ seems like a lot to spend for what will probably be a single use tool. I have been searching for alternative ways to do the work. All thread rod and sockets seems to be the budget way to go. I was thinking about the parts I would need to buy to try this when I recalled the ball joint/tie rod sets I used for front end work (loaned from Advanced Auto).

If you have done maintenance on your Johnny Joints, please share your tips, including how you go the joints apart.
Two things are key. First, the socket you use to push in the washer to take the load off the snap ring needs to be larger than the hole in the washer by enough not to tilt into the hole. It also needs to be smaller than the amount of room that it takes to pop the snap ring out of the groove. You can grind a flat on one side to give the snap ring eyes room to pop out.

The second thing is when you using all thread to squeeze the washer, the opposite side needs to be on the body, not the other washer. Otherwise, you can move the wrong washer or really have to squeeze the races towards each other in hopes that the one under the snap ring moves. React against the body opposite the snap ring and it all works much better.
 
Howdy to all. First post since last May. Life has been busy. My 2004 TJ with Johnny Joints on the control arms squeaks and groans a lot. I'm thinking the 3 year old Johnny Joints are dried out. I want to take them off, disassemble the joints, and apply some new grease. The questions I have concern getting the joints apart and putting them back together. Currie makes a good tool for this but I believe I need both the 2" and 2 1/2" tools to do the job. $225+ seems like a lot to spend for what will probably be a single use tool. I have been searching for alternative ways to do the work. All thread rod and sockets seems to be the budget way to go. I was thinking about the parts I would need to buy to try this when I recalled the ball joint/tie rod sets I used for front end work (loaned from Advanced Auto).

If you have done maintenance on your Johnny Joints, please share your tips, including how you go the joints apart.

I picked up the tools to lube my brand new joints before they go on because I've heard of hit and miss on how well they're lubed from the factory. Don't take that as a hit on JJ quality, just word of mouth and I don't want to do the work in a few months.

If you're talking about potentially re-lubing every 3 years, how often do you plan to own the Jeep? We all spend plenty on single-use tools (aka ball joint presses, seal pullers, etc) that are very valuable when you are arm deep in the job.

I've seen options around on all-thread options that are cheaper. It's you're call what's best worth your time and money.
 
Am I missing something?
It is nearly impossible to get the JJ zerks to accept grease most, if not all, of the time...

Then there are the rare instances where it does accept grease and then you pump enough in to blow it apart…
 
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It is nearly impossible to get the JJ zerks to accept grease most, if not all, of the time...

Then there are the rare instances where it does accept grease and then you pump enough in to blow it apart…
Oh. Well that’s disappointing.
 
Agreed. Fortunately they are very durable and don't require maintenance often.

I can also vouch for the outcome of forcing grease through the zerk
 
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Oh. Well that’s disappointing.
It is, but not nearly as disappointing as to why it happened. The reason it happened is because all the fucktards out there with no integrity or morals knocked off the JJ and Currie found themselves competing at a price point that was not sustainable. Due to the ignorance of consumers, rather than look at what they were getting for slightly more money as in the greaseable bolts, they only looked at the cheap joint without a bolt and compared that price to the JJ with the bolt. They had to delete the bolt and move the fitting to the body to stay competitive against knock off of their own product.

It is far easier to do that than try to educate the idiots that there is value in the bolt and to please do an accurate comparison. Putting a grease fitting on the body is far less trouble than not putting one which causes more issues than having one that is practically useless. To put that pricing bullshit in perspective, the larger greaseable bolt was about 8 bucks retail plus one less operation drilling the ball for the grease path. Hard to compete with cheaper bullshit when you start out at a 20% higher cost right off the bat.
 
It is, but not nearly as disappointing as to why it happened. The reason it happened is because all the fucktards out there with no integrity or morals knocked off the JJ and Currie found themselves competing at a price point that was not sustainable. Due to the ignorance of consumers, rather than look at what they were getting for slightly more money as in the greaseable bolts, they only looked at the cheap joint without a bolt and compared that price to the JJ with the bolt. They had to delete the bolt and move the fitting to the body to stay competitive against knock off of their own product.

It is far easier to do that than try to educate the idiots that there is value in the bolt and to please do an accurate comparison. Putting a grease fitting on the body is far less trouble than not putting one which causes more issues than having one that is practically useless. To put that pricing bullshit in perspective, the larger greaseable bolt was about 8 bucks retail plus one less operation drilling the ball for the grease path. Hard to compete with cheaper bullshit when you start out at a 20% higher cost right off the bat.
can the ball be drilled, are the bolts still available? have you bothered to retrofit them back to that design?
 
Its interesting, because my set of arms came with a grease zerk in the housings AND greaseable bolts with the drilled balls. One of my balls didn't have a complete groove, so I bought another and it was fully machined. Maybe I got lucky with my set and they came at a time when they were doing a changeover.
 
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