Grease fittings on drop links - is this a defect?

Joined
Mar 4, 2008
Messages
70
Location
FL, USA
Hi all,

I'm replacing some drop links and this is my first time dealing with ball joints that have zerk/grease fittings so I'm not sure if I'm missing something obvious here.

The ball joint links came from NAPA, and included grease fittings which install in a pre drilled hole on the side of each ball joint.

However, when I look in the hole, I see some of them have a very obvious channel which gives the grease a path to the ball. Others do not.

My best guess here is that when the ball joint cups are pressed into the drop link housings, they are supposed to align the grease channel on the cup with the hole in the housing, and they've failed to do so.

I've attached a photo of one that looks correct (red lines show where I see the channel) and also one that looks like it's misaligned with no way for the grease to get into the ball joint.

Apologies if this is a stupid question, just want to be sure that I'm not installing defective parts.

(the 'flake' of stuff inside the hole on the second picture isn't grease, it appears to be paint or powder coating that got scraped off when the ball joint was pressed in).




groove.jpg


no-groove.jpg
 
Last edited:
I've always just pumped in enough grease to see the bellows/boot swell a little & then stopped. Can't remember ever having one fail doing that, I just figured it worked it's way in.
 
Thank you, I'll screw in the fittings and see if I can get grease to flow through the ones that have no groove.
smile.gif
 
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