Ball joints,, aka stupid questions

[JES_LS]

I just replaced my steering knuckles in September because the ball joints were bad.
It really pissed me off that a pressed in ball joint failling resulted in replacement of the en(furkiing)tire knuckle. The rest of the knuckle shows zero wear.

Is there any source for replacement lower ball joints or is this another LMC knows better than everyone else Cluster F&ck again??

I'd love to smack the LMC/FMC/JMC engineers that thought that this was a 'good' design until they had second (or twentieth) thoughts.

Somebody out there must make the damn things since they end up in the knuckles in the first place.

 

[scjmc]

I had an F-150 with pressed in "non servicable" lower ball joints. I bought some at NAPA, hammered the old ones out and the new ones in. Hopefully someone will start selling seperate units for us.

 

[lseguy]

Cant answer your question, but the design isnt uncommon. My other car is a 99 M3, and the design is similar. The ball joint is built into the control arm. So when that rubber boot for the ball joint is torn, you have to replace the entire control arm, as I did earlier this year. I believe other E36 chassis non-//M cars are different, as I recall the ball joint being attached via rivets to the control arm. You can drill out those rivets, remove the ball joint, and replacement ball joint kits that include nuts/bolts can be purchased

 

[5speed02]

I went to the local junker and got a 20k mile spindle for $75 and bolted in on in an hour and a half.