Ball joint Help!

I discovered my ball joints and one hub are bad (stock D30 Axle) so I figured I could replace them myself. I read the article on MADXJ about installing offset ball joints and have a Haynes manual and rented the press from Auto Zone but after installing both the upper an lower ball joints on the passenger side I discovered the spindle didn't fit on the studs properly. I looked a little closer and noticed the stud on the upper ball joint seemed to be a bit longer that the one I pulled out. I went back to parts house and verified they gave the the right parts. My problem is that there was a 1/4" gap between the top of the spindle and the bottom of the upper ball joint when the lower ball joint seemed to be seated properly on the tapered stud.
Is there something I'm not doing to get them to seat correctly or are the Autozone/Kragen parts worthless an I need to go buy some more ball joints that will fit?
Help, I don't want to have to ride my bike to work on Monday, it's a bit cold at 65mph. :rattle:

Did the new joints match the old ones in size and shape? If they did then it sounds like the lower joint hasn't seated yet.

i ran into this last spring, i replaced one and it had a different taper than the stock one so i had to do both.. that fixed the problem...

I am replacing both the upper and lower ball joints on both sides, and with the ball joint press I borrowed from auto zone and a 24" breaker bar I made sure the ball joints were seated against the shoulder onthe ball joint bodies. The lower one I pressed up from the bottom to until the shoulder was flush with the knuckle and the upper joint I pressed in from the top down into the upper part of the knuckle until the shoulder was flush with the top of the knuckle.
The replacement joints I got looked the same as the ones I pulled out at first glance. I later looked closer when they didn't seem to fit right and thats when I noticed the upper ball joint stud looked to be longer and had a section of it that wasn't tapered, and on the lower joint I noticed where the grease boot fits on it is a little longer distance from the shoulder than the old ones. I wasn't too concerned at first as I have seen replacement parts have slight differences than stock parts but work fine, but now I'm wondering. I did go back to Auto Zone and verified that the valucraft part I got was the same as the Duralast part they also carry so I know they gave me the parts that are susposed to go in the D30 axle and not for another vehicle. They even checked to see if a different year of vehicle or engine size would give them a different ball joint but like I told them they found all xj's have the same front end, thus only one part number to choose from.
Any other suggestions? :repair:

call the store and ask if you bring it in to replace one or both... now you know what to look for to compare them against eachother..

This is normal. Put it all back together and put it on the ground. On the upper joint the shaft moves in/out (meaning up and down on the axle). The gap will go away with weight on the rig. Just make sure the nuts are torqued right and the cotter pins are in place and bent over correctly. When torquing them always tighten the lower joint then the upper one.


hinkley

Thanks Mark, I was starting to wonder it it actually did move in an out a bit. I don't have as big a gap on the bottom ball joint so I don't think the bottom will allow it to move up too much. Hopefully thats all it will take.
The lower ball joint also came with a full circle clip that I'm assuming isn't needed because I didn't need to take one off when I disassembled. It also came with what looks like a castle nut but has threads on the outside and I didn't see where that would go as I didn't remove one so should I continue to assume its not needed?