So far not impressed with Johnny Joints

Entirely possible with that grease.
Is it also possible or likely that a shop added some shitty grease to the joints and fucked up the good grease? I think 4WP may have greased them when they did my regear even though I didn't ask them too. This is what the rear uppers looked like when disassembled. The grease is very dry and clumpy. I turned/hidden the zerk fittings upward or inward into their respective mounting brackets in an effort to make them inaccessible to prevent that very thing. I know if I do my own work I don't have to worry about another shop fucking up my shit, but there are a few things I don't have time to do. With that said i do most of my own work.

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Well that is not pretty at all. I would be curious what grease they used as it looks like it could be a compatibility breakdown.
 
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Grease is a grease, never heard of a bad grease
Not "bad" grease, rather grease designed for other applications or multi-purpose grease not particularly suited for this use, which would make it "shitty" grease for this application-specifically JJs. High Moly grease is recommended, and I'm pretty sure 4WP is not buying and using $15/tube grease that's for a specific purpose.
 
Grease is a grease, never heard of a bad grease
Use some high moly content in your rear driveshaft u-joints. It won't take long before you think it is a bad grease. Moly is a high load low speed grease. In high speed applications like driveshafts which turn about 4 times as fast as CV joints at the wheels, the moly gets sheared and turns abrasive. Use the right grease for the job and it all works better.
 
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Not "bad" grease, rather grease designed for other applications or multi-purpose grease not particularly suited for this use, which would make it "shitty" grease for this application-specifically JJs. High Moly grease is recommended, and I'm pretty sure 4WP is not buying and using $15/tube grease that's for a specific purpose.
I don't know what's going on, I just know it isn't normal. All the new joints I take apart are clearly lubed with a smooth high moly content grease.
 
Thank you for schooling me, gonna go check my supply now :-/

Some of this things just mind blows me. I remember as a kid walking into someones yard with my grandpa and seeing a semi, tractor and a sedan with a bucket of general purpose grease in the middle, made some time after ww2. Back in Soviet Union there were no high or low quality, everything was "general purpose". All three were greased from the same bucket. After 60 years of explotation, all 3 are still on the road or in the field, last time i checked.
 
Thank you for schooling me, gonna go check my supply now :-/

Some of this things just mind blows me. I remember as a kid walking into someones yard with my grandpa and seeing a semi, tractor and a sedan with a bucket of general purpose grease in the middle, made some time after ww2. Back in Soviet Union there were no high or low quality, everything was "general purpose". All three were greased from the same bucket. After 60 years of explotation, all 3 are still on the road or in the field, last time i checked.

Most parts on old stuff was built around the what lubrication was available then IE "General Purpose". Now days technology allows the grease to be tailored to the application which is why most grease "bibles" are significantly thicker than their oil counterparts. There literally is a grease for everything from a gate hinge to a nuclear reactor.
 
After reading through this thread, I have a question. If you're not going to get grease into a JJ without rebuilding it, what's the point of the fancy greasable bolts? Why not just reuse the factory control arm bolts?
 
After reading through this thread, I have a question. If you're not going to get grease into a JJ without rebuilding it, what's the point of the fancy greasable bolts? Why not just reuse the factory control arm bolts?

Mine uses regular bolts. My thought is that the grease zerks on the housings exist due to market pressures saying they need to be there. Currie put them there rather than constantly explain why they don't need to be there. I recall the grease bolts being intended for the upper frame mounts where the housing zerk is difficult to access. Rather than explain again why they don't need to be there, Currie offers a grease bolt to satisfy the market. They do a similar thing by saying their steering and track bars require 2" of bump stop. That isn't always true when you start digging into the details of your specific build, but it cuts down time spent on a certain kind of nitpicky customer service. The housing zerks and grease bolts might simply be a business compromise.

The whole thing starts to get silly because on the lowers, the only way to easily access the zerks on the housing is to point them down to the ground where they get mowed off on the rocks. Pointing those zerks up into the mount where they are protected means they are easiest to access by removing the arm. Now you are a good ways into disassembling the arm, which allows for a better job of lubing the joint.
 
if the bushing is not cross drilled it's just greasing a bolt that's not supposed to move.
i know some are cross drilled. but IDK if all are.

are they? i've not opened mine yet.
 
if the bushing is not cross drilled it's just greasing a bolt that's not supposed to move.
i know some are cross drilled. but IDK if all are.

are they? i've not opened mine yet.

Forgot about that detail. Some JJ balls are drilled some aren't. But I think the same thinking about market pressures apply.
 
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After reading through this thread, I have a question. If you're not going to get grease into a JJ without rebuilding it, what's the point of the fancy greasable bolts? Why not just reuse the factory control arm bolts?

Mostly ignorance.

The company I used to work for produced stock replacement type chassis parts (Ball Joints, TREs, etc..) and we had customers that absolutely refused to buy our parts if they didn't have grease fittings. You see postings all over the internet about replacing those "junk sealed parts" with "much better greaseable" parts....becasue they don't know any better. Why do you think 95% of new vehicles on the road don't have grease fittings?...it isn't to save money, it's because the last for a very long time with no maintenance.

In most assemblies that are sealed to some extent, the grease isn't going anywhere and not much will go wrong until the sealing mechanism fails and allows in contaminants. The ability to regrease is only really useful in a metal on metal type joint in which wear is inevitable and the grease serves to flush out the wear particles to minimize wear.
 
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I recently received my set of eight aluminum double adjustable control arms from Savvy. First thing I noticed was that they did not come with the greasble bolts. I also noticed that one of the joints on the rear upper arms was different. Here's a picture:

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My email to Savvy went like this:

I recently purchased and received a full set of adjustable control arms for my 2005 Jeep Wrangler TJ. Upon initial unpacking and inspection I noticed a few things that I would like to address:

1-The bolts included do not have grease zerk as clearly shown in your photo on the website.

2-One joint on the rear upper control arms appears different than the other three in that set. It is somewhat narrower and slightly different design.

3-The jamb nut on the same joint that has a different appearance and width will not turn by hand but only with moderate pressure from a wrench.

The odd joint in question has right hand threads and is on the right in the picture.

Here is their response:

  1. The bolts we include are non greasable which is because they do not provide any benefits on Johnny Joints. When you disassemble the joint, you can see the balls do not have a hole in them. This means the grease through the bolt doesn't grease the joint at all and are hollow, essentially weakening the bolt for no reason. The website picture was just ripped off our old website and is not updated. The pricing being cheaper than Currie/RockJock should reflect some of the cost savings of not getting greasable bolts.
  2. This is definitely a problem. I had a few sets shipped out that have the wrong joint which we did not catch during assembly. We will have to send you out a new joint with which will have a return label for the narrow joint. The bushings inside are not as easy to service and replace so we definitely recommend the wider JJ.
  3. In general, the Jam nut should be ok as they do need to be tightened with a wrench.
I have received a replacement joint for the one that was different than the others. I also noticed that the joint that was different does seem to a slot in the middle to allow grease from a graseable bolt into the joint. So, it seems that they make two different types of joints, some that will allow grease from the bolt and some that will not. All the joints in my set, including the replacement, do not have a hole or slot that would allow grease from a bolt with grease fitting.

I would be curious to hear the story behind the change. Is it simply cheaper to produce them without the hole or slot?
 
I recently received my set of eight aluminum double adjustable control arms from Savvy. First thing I noticed was that they did not come with the greasble bolts. I also noticed that one of the joints on the rear upper arms was different. Here's a picture:

View attachment 129370
My email to Savvy went like this:

I recently purchased and received a full set of adjustable control arms for my 2005 Jeep Wrangler TJ. Upon initial unpacking and inspection I noticed a few things that I would like to address:

1-The bolts included do not have grease zerk as clearly shown in your photo on the website.

2-One joint on the rear upper control arms appears different than the other three in that set. It is somewhat narrower and slightly different design.

3-The jamb nut on the same joint that has a different appearance and width will not turn by hand but only with moderate pressure from a wrench.

The odd joint in question has right hand threads and is on the right in the picture.

Here is their response:

  1. The bolts we include are non greasable which is because they do not provide any benefits on Johnny Joints. When you disassemble the joint, you can see the balls do not have a hole in them. This means the grease through the bolt doesn't grease the joint at all and are hollow, essentially weakening the bolt for no reason. The website picture was just ripped off our old website and is not updated. The pricing being cheaper than Currie/RockJock should reflect some of the cost savings of not getting greasable bolts.
  2. This is definitely a problem. I had a few sets shipped out that have the wrong joint which we did not catch during assembly. We will have to send you out a new joint with which will have a return label for the narrow joint. The bushings inside are not as easy to service and replace so we definitely recommend the wider JJ.
  3. In general, the Jam nut should be ok as they do need to be tightened with a wrench.
I have received a replacement joint for the one that was different than the others. I also noticed that the joint that was different does seem to a slot in the middle to allow grease from a graseable bolt into the joint. So, it seems that they make two different types of joints, some that will allow grease from the bolt and some that will not. All the joints in my set, including the replacement, do not have a hole or slot that would allow grease from a bolt with grease fitting.

I would be curious to hear the story behind the change. Is it simply cheaper to produce them without the hole or slot?

A smooth ball running between poly bearings will last considerably longer. If the ball had a slot in it, and that slot were to come in contact with the poly bearings, it would effectively act like a cheese grater. That's likely why they don't do it anymore.
 
Regarding the slot or hole in the ball, if the zerk in the outer housing isn't sufficient to get grease throughout the bearing surfaces, why would the ability to get sufficient grease through the grease bolt and then through the drilled ball be any different?
 
Regarding the slot or hole in the ball, if the zerk in the outer housing isn't sufficient to get grease throughout the bearing surfaces, why would the ability to get sufficient grease through the grease bolt and then through the drilled ball be any different?

Well, The poly bushings don't touch each other...there is a small unsupported area there. If that area remains full of grease, that's all the lube it will ever need...Once it's greased properly, you shouldn't have to touch it again. The reason that polymers are used rather than sintered metal is that they don't require much lube. The lube exists for the primary purpose of filling an area so that there is no room for contaminants to enter.

Just like aftermarket non-greaseable ball joints....A lot of folks say they're crap because they don't last long (not talking specifically about Jeeps here)...but I feel a lot of that is due to the fact that most don't come with nearly enough grease in them...the boots are dry if you pull them off. I fill the boots with grease before installation so the excess spooges out, thus creating a "boundary seal", and making the boot considerably more useful...then they don't wear out because there is no room for water or other schmoo to enter the part.
 
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why would the zerk on the joint not grease the bushings, it's gonna fill the entire casing.
either way would /should work. zerk on the bolt needs matched to a cross drilled ball. or an external fitting directly into the joint casing.

but if zerk shear is an issue i'd remove and cap them so no contaminants could enter the joint, no matter what type is used.