Lower Ball Joint weep/seep

Looking for opinions here. Just finished some maintenance on my truck and noticed a small dab of grease coming from the the passenger LBJ. It doesn't appear to be torn at the boot and after raising the front end to check for play, the joint appears to be tight. No play, no noise while driving.

I bought my 2012 3 months ago and it came with a spacer lift and diff drop in the front. I've only found a few threads regarding this issue so I'm guessing it's not too common. Would a 2.5" lift in the front be a contributing cause to this?

Either way, if the ball joint is at high risk of failure, should I just A.) get some stock length LCA's with a uniball or B.) just get an oem ball joint and just replace it? lol I figure if I'm going to upgrade my UCA, might as well upgrade the LCA.

Passenger side:



Driver side:

 

When it starts to drip on the tire you may want to change them

 

How many miles? I'm inclined to say to monitor it if under 100K. Doesn't look bad. My driver-side leaked worse at 135K when I replaced it. Went with Moogs.

 

I just hit 55K miles, but I bought the truck at 49K. Didn't notice it until today.

 

Sub'd

 

Don't worry about it. Move on with your life. If the boot was missing I would say replace it.

 

time to go LT

 

Just got it back from the shop. No play, or steering's normal, no noise or clunks, etc. Apparently these seep from time to time and there's no indication of failure or safety issue. Tech just cleaned it up for now. I will continue to monitor it.

 

Normal. Ball joints are a wearable item and that looks about right given the age of the truck. Anything more than that (globs of grease) and I'd say replace the joint. Stock length LCAs with uniballs are $$$ in comparison to a $30 balljoint and you're replacing a little grease for a squeaky truck.

The end of the rubber boot on a ball joint only seals with the slight pressure against the spindle and there is no mechanical seal like a criclip or o-ring and groove. Once the rubber starts to wear and age, you'll get a small seep like what you're experiencing. If you ever get around to removing the lower control arms and give the boot room to relax, it expands over the threads of the BJ and just hangs there wide open.

 

Has anyone tried putting a small hole in the boot of the OEM upper and lower ball joints and then use an injection needle on a grease gun to fill them with grease? Instead of having a zerk fitting. Seems like a dab of grease when completed on the outside of the boot would seal up the pin hole until next time it got greased? The grease on the hole I thought would work for sealing it, as a comparison, the grease that is leftover on any zerks tends to still be there next time around they get greased again.
Was a thought I had.

Thanks

 

They aren't perfectly airtight and some can seep out, it doesn't look like enough to be alarmed. The lift may cause a little more stress but nothing crazy... Monitoring it for heavy leaking should be about all you need.