Boots, factory or polyurethane?

[Danglerb]

My upper ball joint boots are split open, but it could just be age etc. and the joints may be ok if I replace the boots and grease asap.

Factory ball joint boots, or aftermarket poly?

Any suggestions on cleaning the old joint, regrease, and replacing the boot?

[Linderpat]

you need to be careful in doing that to make sure there is no grime in the socket before you re-grease and put on new boots. The grime will act like a grinder and destroy the ball joint. I assume you will remove the control arms from the car to perform this maintanence. I've replaced upper A arms twice - once on my first shark and once on my current car (ridiculously expensive). Anyway, if the joint is tight when you wiggle the threaded end, it is probably ok (subject to careful inspection for grime). If it is loose like a video game joy stick, you will need to replace. Not sure of any repair kits for the ball joint portion of the upper A arm (928 Motorsports sells one for the two rear points of the arm)....post pics when you tear it down...

[Linderpat]

woops - as to your original question - since the boots are so inexpensive, I would default to factory in all cases...why risk bad quality on aftermarket?

[928sg]

Roger sells the Audi part that many of us have used to replace the upper ball joint boot.. it works fine.

[Danglerb]

Actually I haven't decided on the how of replacing, but I do have a set of Bilstein shocks waiting for a change to go on both of my cars, and a spare set of upper A arms with good joints from the major 928 dismantler down in San Diego. OTOH if I could just remove the old boot, clean and regrease the joint, and slip on a new boot that would be dandy.

I was thinking, maybe give Roger a call and see what he has, since of the major suppliers he seems like the only one willing to pursue lower cost alternative parts. The Porsche boots I found were $29 each, vs about $6 for typical poly parts. Red poly would still look best with my bush plate.

[psychII]

I replace both cracked upper boots just a few weeks ago. I used a rag and Q-Tip to clean the old grease out and repacked with Mobil-1. Went with the boots Roger sells.

However, I found bits of plastic mixed in with the old grease when I cleaned the joint. Now, I'm out $560 for new A-Arms. Not bad price, but I wanted to spend that $$ on finishing off my AC.

[DanielDudley]

Carl's rebuild kit is very nice, and it maintains your geometry, so there is no need for an alignment, if your alignment is good. Brass cup instead of plastic.

You can see his installation instuctions on his website.

[Danglerb]

Waking up an old thread since I was playing with ball joints the other day.

Most likely I will end up ordering from Roger, but I "really" would like a handier local source for some ball joint boots, and I would really like to find them in polyurethane. I ordered a pair of 911 Energy Suspension 9.13105 boots to try out and have a couple from a vw shop (too big and too small, with no easy way to clamp them on).

Would an Audi dealer or some place like NAPA stock boots to fit the Lemforder ball joints?

Potentially good news, one of the new 928 owners I met at Sharktoberfest works at Energy Suspensions, and wants to make some stuff to fit the 928.