AirtekHVAC

Checked mine today. Both cars have aluminum....at least they don't break on jackstands and lift bars.

SMTCapeCod

Wow this is news....again? Where's that newspaper add from the Devek site? Or was it Intl's?

ANyway- replacement was on of my first forays into suspension work, had to do them on my 83 after I bought it in the early 2000s. Found it very east. Getting a decent alignment afterwards, no. But that is better now.

Clearly, it was a timely post.

waynestrutt

As Jim said it was not a recall just an upgrade. Mine only lasted 35 years plus 190,000 and and another 40,000 sideways. The hardest job was getting them off the studs where the aluminum and steel fused together.
The flimsey aluminum universal joints on the steering column worry me more. Too bad antiseize was so expensive back then to be added to the cost of a new Porsche ,or had it not yet been invented. I should send the assemblers at Porsche a bottle.

hacker-pschorr

Sage advice, wait for them to be on the brink of failure before replacing them with a superior setup. I cannot wait for your next post telling people they can wait to change their timing belt until it starts to fray apart.

Usually?
Do you want to tell that to the owner of a pristine, one owner low mileage 78 that hit a tree about 15 years ago when his came apart on a turn out in the country?
The car was a total write-off, local car in Green Bay.

Earlier that year his car was aligned and received a clean bill of health, nothing was loose or showed signs of any wear. I guess he's the exception to the rule....a very expensive exception.

Here is the problem with your advice vs reality = You won't always know they are worn before they fail unless you are constantly checking them. Even then, it's a false positive since on a long drive or say a travel weekend they could start to get loose.

How often should one check them? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Every 1,000 miles? I'm sure you have a precise inspection schedule to ensure nobody ever experiences a failure, please share it so we can all mirror your proven routine.

A steel ball join carrier can be driven for quite a long time before experiencing absolute failure. Just ask any seasoned mechanic how many cars come in with worn ball joints (and tie rods) with owners ignoring the advice to change them.
The early 928's have an aluminum ball joint carrier that can go from just fine, to loose, to catastrophic failure rather quickly.

Bottom line, this is a very easy fix. There is no good reason to put it off.

Lopez

Just to add to this thread:

I've owned two of these and worked on many other early cars and I've never come across one that had the joints changed out.

I did mine this weekend - (I've only driven the car to and from the tire store and a couple other short errands while getting the basics sorted on this car) - and the ball joints had probably 3mm of vertical play in them which wasn't really detectable with them on the car.

So, change your ball joints! They really are a hazard.

dr bob

Chris --

Curious how many miles you have on the car. We did an "on the car" inspection with a jack, and the owner's hand wrapped around the joint. He said no detectable play. At some point soon we'll be doing an alignment on his car, so it's not that much trouble to unbolt the lower BJ from the control arm if that's what it takes to get a better "feel" for the play.

Thanks!

88bender

Guys
Any recommendation where I can buy these 2 steel ball joints?
Thanks

Dave928S

^^ You can actually get a nice replica of the originals from 928 International, but with a steel joint/housing pressed in, which gets rid of the original weakness, and means you don't need to change other parts. Thread here ... https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...um-joints.html

Lopez

Bob - This car has pretty high mileage - 176,000. I couldn't detect the movement with the car bolted together but as soon as I got them off I could easily rattle the ***** around inside their races. I'm not sure why this wasn't obvious with the suspension bolted together but it wasn't.

I installed these re-designed aluminum w/ steel inserts mentioned in the above referenced thread - IIRC the steel ones are also now NLA?

jpitman2

The change calls up a new bottom shock mount, but its not mandatory - it just has shorter bolts, the nuts still do up, and you dont have to disturb the shock. Some of the thread protrudes - dont run over bricks just inside the wheel track.
You need 2 new eccentrics, as one of the old ones has not changed.
Still have my alloy units on the bench somewhere.

jp 83 Euro S AT 56k

Imo000

That's because the lower cotrol arm was pulling it one way and the upper control arm the other way. If you've moved the two control arms in the other direction the joint would have became loose.