Delphi UCA ball joint play question

[thrty8street]

I removed my upper control arms today to install some powerflex bushings and noticed that ball joints moved easily by hand. Does this amount of resistance look normal? The link below has a short video demonstrating its movement.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ikIPMrw54t8

If they look good, I will throw the powerflex bushings on and reinstall. Otherwise, I have a set of Genuine BMW UCAs I can replace these with. Thanks in advance!


 


 

 

[Mike W.]

You're not measuring play, you're looking at friction. Two completely different things.

Having been wrenching for, ahem, a long time, my go to for checking play in ball joints has been my 16" Channellocks. Before E28s it was always a good check. A little was ok, more not. I've seen up to a quarter inch or so, which is definitely sloppy and worn out. But on E28s, and mine seemed to be especially touchy, any was too much. I finally eliminated my shimmy for the first time when I bought new arms with new bushings. I chucked the old ones in a vice having measured nothing with my big channellocks, and found just a touch of play using the vice with moderate, not high, pressure. And tried new bushings, in my old arms, including solid urethane ones. But that was enough for mine to have shimmy.

However, if you do not have shimmy now, you may very well be good.

[Chicagotrader92]

I have these brand new, yet to be installed, and the ball joint is pretty easy to move by hand, but mayyybe not quite as easy as your video demonstrates. I'd say they are still good. 

[thrty8street]

Thank you for your feedback, Mike and Chicagotrader.

I ended up replacing these with Genuine BMW control arms which were incredibly stiff and difficult to move by hand. 

I am tracking down a shimmy so hopefully the change of control arms + the powerflex bushings will solve that.

I believe the suspension does not need to be preloaded with the powerflex bushings, correct?