Custom-Made Ball Joints

A few of us building round-tube CR's had some issues with the ball joint supplied with the front suspension so we went about finding a replacemnt. This was not a trivial task, as we needed a ball joint with a very specific sized housing to suit the suspension arm, and correct taper to suit the VZ Commodore knuckle. Howe Racing to the rescue! The guys at Howe stepped up to the plate and made us some custom made studs to our specification, and mated to their existing "hybrid" housing we had the solution. These ball joints are very awesome, beautifully designed and machined and are totally rebuildable.

From left to right we can see the dust boot, outer housing (already

screwed in to the arm), stud and nut, and seat and grease nipple.

The Howe part numbers are 2247102 for the stud and 22329 for the housing

The dust boot Howe supplied is not ideal for this application as it is quite large and doesn't seat very well due to the design of the suspension arm. Five minutes at Repco solved that problem, and the TE8 dust boot ($7 / pair) is a perfect fit, and nicely concertinaed so it doesn't deform under stud deflection. The springs are not used in this application, and I may actually glue the boots on to the outer of the housing to stop them "popping" off under stud deflection.

The Howe boot on the left, TE8 on the right

After dropping the stud through the housing, the seat screws

in to the housing, and the grease nipple screws in to the seat

The boot is a nice snug fit over the protuding part of the housing