When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
If there is a hole where the needle went in the grease will continue to come out best find another injection site
Even with the boot split ear to ear, grease stays there, there is nothing to push it out.
The needle will make such a tiny slit that it would take a lot of pressure to push the grease out.
Its really more of a dust cover.
Was under my car on the weekend and noted the same damage on front upper ball joint boot, rear stabilizer links, and rear toe links. Ordered the ebay replacement boots from the front ball joints and rear toe links based on Gordo's sizing, a grease needle from Amazon, and new rear stab links from RockAuto. Wish me luck!
Yep, that's the rear toe link. You can get Dorman replacements for the entire link for about $120 (USD) or order just the boots like I did from Gordo's sizing. In addition to saving some money on parts, you shouldn't need to get an alignment done if you replace just the boots, but replacing the part will likely throw off the toe settings so you'd need a proper alignment.
The metal plate can be removed, then you put the boot on filled with grease, put the metal plate back on.
EverTough, part number, 67008, Tie Rod End Remover, is what i have used, with success.
The tie wraps may just work, but with this tool you make it like it was.
I got almost three more years from the rear uppers this way
Were you able to use the factory metal rings to secure the boots or did you end up using zip ties as described above?
No, the spring steel rings were too much of a struggle for me. But so far the zip ties have held up well I store the car on a lift and can check whether any ties are broken, and easily replace them if need be. But so far, all have held up well.. On one application, I attempted to use a thin copper wire and wrap the ends; but that seemed to be overkill given the zip ties were so much easier.
Got mine done today. Installed new Stab Links and replaced the boots on the rear tie rod with the eBay Bulgarian units. The tie rod boots were an easy job, remove the bolt, pry the old boots off, slide the new ones on, fight with the metal rings, and then inject some grease. I fought with the metal rings on the first one for a good 20 minutes until I developed the right technique, then it was easy. For the larger ring, get one end up it started in the slot, and then sorta pull the rest of it into place in a circle. The smaller one I was able to open up a bit with pliers and get it on.
The stab links were annoying, mostly because the top bolts, which are nylock bolts, were seized and with the rubber insulator and e-brake cable in the way it wasn't easy to get in there and hold the shaft with something. One of them I was able to wrestle with and got it off, the other I got irritated and cut it off. Reassembly was easy.
BTW I used Lucas Oil Heavy Duty grease. The OEM grease seemed to be stickier, more like a silicon based product. However, searching for best grease to use on ball joints, this Lucas product came up often as one of the best choices.
Very interesting post, thanks!
Do you have the reference of the OEM grease by any chance?
These are the top and bottom ring spring clips. I could not reinstall them. I tried, different approaches to no avail. Ended up using zip ties... much easier.
These things are a bugbear, but there is a way. I probably don't even need to say so, but, the one on the left there is malleable enough that you can just slip it more or less into position, ignore it until the very end of the task at hand, and simply give it a pinch with channel locks to finish the job. It's the spring loop on the right that is both a finger-buster and threatens to tear the boot if it slips while you're getting it on.
The best approach I've found is to use a small pick and pliers in tandem to make it do what you want. Here's a video of how it's done with just the pick (and that is the exact same pick I used) by a guy who is a lot better at this than I am:
I bought a 9 year old XJR (4 years ago), and all the boots were perished - exactly like this. The car had 80K miles at that point, and the various unprotected joints were damaged by grit and moisture. So, doing this "bootectomy" will definitely save you some money on hard parts, if you catch things early.
- The XK suspension looks very, very similar to the XJR...
- At 80K miles, the actual XJR suspension bushings (eg, lower front contol arms, rear wishbones) were toast as well.
Boots aside, I hope the X150 suspension bushings are a lot better than those fitted to the X350
Of course the inboard boot is shot on my rear toe link as well as the ones at the wheel end. Got the wheel end boot size as 15 30 23 from earlier in this thread and have ordered those.
Does anyone know the replacement boot size for the inboard end?
No, I don't as my inboard boots were fine. Might have to unbolt it and measure, if you do, please post here so we'll have it for future reference. Or maybe someone has a spare link laying around they can measure?
