Did you ever check those boxes?
I purchased a pair of Moog Problem Solver lower ball joints for my '68 Barracuda convertible. The pair that I put in there when I went through the suspension 3 or 4k miles ago were worn out? My alignment guy lifted the front of the car to make enough room for a prybar to lip under the tire and lift it up. The amount of freeplay at the lower balljoint was scary. The bottom of the tire would move over 3/4 of an inch up before the balljoint play would be taken up. Yes, Moog joints.
I ordered another set of Moog joints from Summit, K-781 & K783. I have the 11 &3/4" disc brake swap on my car.
The driver's side went in like normal. When I pulled the passenger side out of the box and prepared to put the rubber boot on it, I felt the entire ball joint itself wiggling loosely in the forged arm. I called Summit and they sent me a replacement and picked up the bad one UPS. I love Summit!
The next day, I received the replacement passenger side lower ball joint, # K-781. The ball joint seemed tight in the arm, so I began to bolt it in. No sooner than I had the K-781 bolted to the spindle and began bolting on the castle nut to attach the assembly to the lower control arm, than the ball joint fell out of the forged arm nearly dropping my spindle/dustshield onto the ground. I was just barley able to catch it in time.
I started doing some research about Moog quality and was disappointed to find this is a rather widely known issue. What a disappointment to find out Moog sold us out! :wack:
Needless to say, I am returning both lower ball joints to Summit and making them aware of the dangerous quality control issue with Moog.
I found a company that reportedly sells high quality suspension pasts called XRF Chassis. Has anyone tried their parts?
China builds what they are told to build. If Moog asked for the best ball joint made in the world China could do it and in quantity. If you asked a USA company to build you the best they probably could as well but probably not in quantity. Have you ever worked anywhere with say over 1000 employees? There are so many worthless workers in that number. Maybe it's the same in China I don't know, but there is very little pride in doing the best job in the USA in a large production plant anymore. On a small scale you can get a group of badass workers but on the big scale the turds seem to poison the whole well. Then add our countries tax rates and regulations and it is no wonder nobody wants to start or keep open a big welfare manufacturing plant here. Korea is where I would actually go if I were the next Steve Jobs. Korea seems to make good stuff without having to be evil to their population to force it.
Yes Moog is becoming an inferior part now. They are predominately produces in Mexico with a small portion coming in from China and an even smaller portion that's still produced on our shores. As far as XRF goes.......they are the best!
The designer and owner of the company was the lead designer for Dana/Spicer years ago. He was getting disgusted with the company's direction and the use of inferior materials and craftsmanship at Dana/Spicer that he broke away and started XRF Chassis. We had a sales rep come in and showed us cutaways of a Spicer ball joint, a Moog, and their own. You could just tell just by looking at the XRF that it is a superior ball joint. We also saw a video of a pull test between the three and the XRF took nearly 1.5X the amount of force to pull apart than the rest.
So the first XRF ball joints purchased went on a Toyota pre runner 2wd truck. We put two sets of moogs in it and within 3 months they were loose and rattling. We then put in a set XRF's on the third attempt and they are still in the truck til today and tight, 4 years later. I was so sold on them after that, that I purchased a complete set for my 71 Scamp. I will always use XRF when they are available for what I'm working on. Also they are made by our friendly, skillful, and smart neighbors to the north, Canada!
There has to be some sort of swadgine/crimping process done after the ball goes into the socket. I suspect that they did not have that process set up properly and not getting a good enough "hit" on them to make them retain properly..
But as I stated earlier in this thread, they need to run their proper set up pieces to validate their process each time that they run a batch... If not, you just end up running a bunch of junk/scrap....
It's basic manufacturing.
Please take your politics somewhere else. I can assure YOU that this thread is going downhill fast if you continue this direction.
For what it's worth, both boxes have the "Made in USA" text on them. There is no other information regarding this other than the text on the end of the box.
I fitted the XRF lower ball joints yesterday, will grease them up today and do a driveway alignment. They went together as expected, the ball stud could be moved in the socket by hand and there was no freeplay detected. The rubber boots came already mounted on the ball studs.