Front End Heim Joints

Tim Moland

Well-Known Member
Even after sanding down all joints I noticed the noise with a stethoscope was coming from the lower outside joint connecting to the hub assembly. I only replaced the (2) making the noise one on each bottom side.
Just when I thought I had it all figured out.... Are we wanting to use nylon in our heim joints, or ptfe? All the research I have read points to ptfe.
 

Goblin Graber

Well-Known Member
Just when I thought I had it all figured out.... Are we wanting to use nylon in our heim joints, or ptfe? All the research I have read points to ptfe.
I went PTFE. I called Adam and he said the factory ones are nylon.

I bought my heim joints from Ruff Stuff. I have used their joints before on Jeeps with zero issues. I think it cost me $80 shipped for 4 joints and a bottle of Tri Flow ptfe lube.
 

Dsteinhorst

Well-Known Member
Ever since I built mine, it had some groaning at times. Now that I'm about 3500 miles in with several autocrosses, it groans and squeaks constantly. There's also a gentle looseness in the front end. My right lower rod end is quite loose. I am going to replace both lowers with high quality ones and see if there's any noise left.

Side note, mine are LH thread, but frame 196 has RH ones. Is there any rhyme or reason?
 

Waterdriver

Goblin Guru
Ever since I built mine, it had some groaning at times. Now that I'm about 3500 miles in with several autocrosses, it groans and squeaks constantly. There's also a gentle looseness in the front end. My right lower rod end is quite loose. I am going to replace both lowers with high quality ones and see if there's any noise left.

Side note, mine are LH thread, but frame 196 has RH ones. Is there any rhyme or reason?
I believe the groaning and accelerated wear is the preloaded stress on the lower heims if your lower control arms were like mine.
Attaching the front heim joint to the chassis, there was an 8mm gap between the trailing heim joint and chassis maiting surface on mine. Used extra grade 8 washer as spacers to remove as preload as possible. All that preload will will wear that socket out on that side of the ball and never have a chance to get any grease to reintroduced. The ball doesn't have any grooves in it to capture grease and lube itself, like a ball joint typically does.
 

socaljeff3798

Well-Known Member
We had the squeak on both builds and was able to get rid of it. Lining the grim joints with a very viscous oil will help if you haven’t done that. Also we have noticed our driver side brake starting to squeak without the brakes applied. That’s just the pad mount need some grease on them.

When I had some powder coating inside the threads on the arms, I used a small cutoff wheel to cut one groove perpendicular to the threads on just the first 4-5 threads of one of the hiem joints and used that to clean the threads up on all of the holes. Basically turned one hiem joint into a tap. Worked really well. Cut the groove only as deep as the thread and only a few starter threads.
Or you could even use a Tap!
 

Dsteinhorst

Well-Known Member
I believe the groaning and accelerated wear is the preloaded stress on the lower heims if your lower control arms were like mine.
My controls arms also had this. Properly sized heim joints should be able to handle a certain amount of preload, though. I can overcome the preload easily with hand pressure. There is clear looseness in one of my upper inner joints as well as one of my lower outers. The popping and squeaking is embarrassing. Oddly, it is much worse during a humid day.

I don't mean to bad talk the financial decisions that are made, but my opinion is there are higher quality rod ends available that may be a better fit for this kit. I purchased some Aurora brand USA made ones from a local race shop and I'm going to give them a shot this weekend. I may eventually swap them all over, but that's a $700 project.
 
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