Lower Ball Joint

Last time I bug you all for a few days, I promise. I have read about some spectacular failures when the lower ball joint failed. The cases all looked like 1st gens with a lot of miles on them. How much of a concern is this with 3rd gens? I had a 1" lift on my 2016 and some alignment adjustment to avoid rubbing (of new 265/75/r16s) about 4500 miles ago on a truck with 22,000 miles total. I do some off roading but no high speed crazy stuff and no crawling or anything like that. How worried should I be about this?

 

Those trucks are mostly first gens with well over 100k miles on them or 2nd gens with high milage in salt states or treated roughly wheeling them.
You should have no worries for many miles to come. Check in at 100 to 125k.

 

Is there any routine maintenance we are supposed to be doing with the ball joint or LCA generally? I don't recall reading about any or seeing any zerks when I put my LCA armor on. Thanks

 

So I decided to head underneath and look at the lower ball joint. I wish I'd taken a pic before I changed out the suspension and alignment. Anyway, here is a pic. Is it normal that it sits at a slight angle as it does? Just from the pic does anything jump out as an issue or problem? Thanks

 

Looks perfect dude. No worries

 

Thanks man!

 

Just check that greese boot for leaks every now and then. It will take a while to break those if you're not wheeling.

 

the 1st GENs came from the factory with a less robust LBJ which were sometimes prone to failure, I had my 2004 LBJ replaced uinder the recall never had a failure with 260k miles on it https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2005/RCONL-05V225-5328.pdf

 

Thanks gents! It seems like the LBJ is not something I need to worry about at this point.

In the old days when I was Jeepin' I was younger, dumber and just didn't care.

These days, with my 10 year old son in the co-pilot seat, I find I am seized by caution.

 

In some ways at this point I am almost one of those "You Have Become Your Dad" commercials:

https://ispot.tv/a/wlFY

 

Lol I'm in my younger days now. I'm out almost every weekend fucking up my truck. At least the majority of things that go wrong I can fix myself. Also I don't daily my truck anymore so its basically a dedicated camping rig/ offroader.

 

Unfortunately, behold your future lol:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/I3DM/progressive-road-trip

 

Lol I take my 5 year old wheeling with me. He loves it man