Ball joints vs king pins for light vehicles

I can see the benefits of ball joints for a front suspension with upper and lower control arms. I can also see the benefits of king pins for heavy vehicles. In vehicles such as our XJ's with axle C's, does anyone think it would have been better if Dana retained the king pin setup used on earlier axle designs, such as the Dana 60 front?

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/general-4x4-discussion/82384-dana-60-kingpin-vs-balljoint.html



Personally, I like ball joints from a maintenance standpoint; I've had both.

Guess is just a bunch of weenies, no love for the king pins. My W250 had a D60 king pin front axle, 600 pounds of bumper and winch, and 1000 pounds of motor. It was a beast. Used to winch trees out of the creek bed that were too hard for the tractor to get into. Front end was solid as could be. Only problem was lack of crossover steering.

WB9YZU said:

Personally, I like ball joints from a maintenance standpoint; I've had both.

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I'm old enough to have owned vehicles that were built before ball joints were widely used, ball joints were a revelation. You can change ball joints on a Saturday morning, can't do that with king pins.
How tight king pins are depends on the skill of the mechanic installing them, they have to be reamed to size and it's easy to go a little too far.
If tight and always lubed, they can last a very long time.

Ball joints are probably cheaper if you are paying someone to change them and definitely cheaper if you have the right tools to change them yourself.
Apples vs. oranges. I'll take the apple.

md21722 said:

Guess is just a bunch of weenies, no love for the king pins. My W250 had a D60 king pin front axle, 600 pounds of bumper and winch, and 1000 pounds of motor. It was a beast. Used to winch trees out of the creek bed that were too hard for the tractor to get into. Front end was solid as could be. Only problem was lack of crossover steering.

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My XJ and My W250 have king pins. For the XJ, I think its more a question of what can you buy when you need to upgrade the axle (availability and price) than it is a question of price. I got a good deal on some OEM Ford D60 kingpin outers... I've since bent the inner C on one side (and then replaced both inner C's with SOLID units), plated the outer knuckles, bought custom wheel hubs, bought drive flanges, done a full kingpin re-build... In the end it would have cost the same to do either.

Mine work good, but I've seen plenty of ball joint axle equipped rigs perform well too.

lazyxj said:

I'm old enough to have owned vehicles that were built before ball joints were widely used, ball joints were a revelation. You can change ball joints on a Saturday morning, can't do that with king pins.
How tight king pins are depends on the skill of the mechanic installing them, they have to be reamed to size and it's easy to go a little too far.
If tight and always lubed, they can last a very long time.

Ball joints are probably cheaper if you are paying someone to change them and definitely cheaper if you have the right tools to change them yourself.
Apples vs. oranges. I'll take the apple.

Click to expand...

I'd argue that I can service the kingpins in the same amount of time it takes to do ball joints. In my 2000 Ram 2500, it took a day to do all 4 ball joints. In my 91 Ram W250, it took a day to do upper and lower kingpins. No reaming required, but it was a bear to get the upper kingpin out, and torque the new ones in. Its about $200 for a full rebuild kingpin kit from Parts Mike Parts, and I think similar in cost for 4 EA Spicer branded ball joints for a D60.

I guess I'll take the Orange, but mostly because they're installed and working.