Ball joint / axle - u joint replacement

Hi All,

I am planning on replacing the front wheel bearings on my 96 Cherokee (4wd, 4.0, auto, AC, Dyna 30, Chrylser rear). The driver side bearing is very loose and lots of noise while on the highway. The vehicle has 125k, not much off roading yet.

Since the front will be apart anyway, I figured it might be time to replace the upper / lower ball joints and or u-joints axle shaft assy. Is there anyway to tell if they are worn out, or should I just replace them.

If replacement is necessary on the u-joint axle assy, should I go with new or remanufactured?

Thanks!

Hmmm.

The ball joints are checked by using a pry bar to see if they have any lateral play in them. There should be no play -- if there is movement when you pry between the knuckle and the axle, the ball joint should be replaced.

I'm not sure I understand your question regarding the axle u-joints. Perhaps your thinking of a front-wheel drive car, where you just go to Auto Zone and buy a whole new axle. The XJ axles use conventional u-joints. You don't usually replace the entire axle assembly, you just buy a new u-joint, press out the old one and press in the new one.

Regarding the ball joints, that can be a pretty nasty job, and they can often go for 200K miles or more, so I would inspect, but skip pre-emptive replacement. On the other hand, if there's any need, now's the time, since the hub and axle must be pulled anyway to do it.

You might want to look at your wheel bearings as well. Mine were pretty bad (we ended up caravaning back to camp at NACFest because I couldn't go much above 20mph without scaring the crap out of myself). I can't understand why the guys at the allignment shop never seem to pick up on wheel bearings, but every time I go in they say I need ball joints.

When I did the wheel bearings on my '89 it was a major pain. All the salt from winters and from the ocean took its toll. I would definately recommend changing the u-joint while you have the wheel bearing off as a preventative measure. And always grease the heck out the the wheel bearing contact points to make the next removal a little easier.

Thanks all. I will leave the ball joints alone for now, and be replacing the hub assemblies and u joints on the axles, and drive shafts. Thanks for the quick reply, with helpful information. I was not sure about the front axles being seperate from the u joints, but I know that now.

Thanks again.

I'm sure you could search and find a couple other ways to get the hubs off, but most of the people I've talked to prefer to take out the 3 bolts that hold the assembly in, replace them with longer ones and beat those until it pops out. Don't just back out the stock bolts and try to do it that way, they run about $6.00 a piece from the dealer when you mess up the heads and they need to be replaced. Like mudhound said, make sure you use anti-seize on the new bearing assembly so you can get it back out in the future without all the work. Good luck, Bryan

The first time took my bearing units off I had no luck with the tap them out with the bolts method (nor the bang the living out of them method) and finally had to go get a big (7lb) slide hammer. Even then it took me about two hours of slamming trading turns with my bro. My jeep was13 years old at the time and it may have been the first time they were off but its always lived in sunny salt free caly. My point here is that you may want to prepare for some real PITA.