Rugby73
New Member
Dana 44, putting in new ball joints, have clamp style press. Go in pretty good no worries there. Go to install new knuckles from Duff disc brake conversion and driver side goes in ok. Had to grind a bit off the lower axle yoke to clear stud sticking out of knuckle but no biggie. That side rotates/moves with about 5lbs of force (too light??). Go to the other side and go through the sequence... lower nut 70ft/lbs, install sleeve but, whoa it keeps going on in...hmm back off a little and decide to just install top nut. Kept checking knuckle movement as I torque down and it just keeps getting tighter. At 100 ft/lbs the knuckle moves but it sure feels like more than the recommended 25 lbs of pull maximum Ford recommends. I could not get the 40ft/lbs on the inner sleeve and the castle nut on top just screws on so far that a cotter pin is not even getting into one of the slots because the nut is so far down. This issue is all over the web but I haven't found a good solid answer as to why this is happening and how to fix when someone is (supposedly) following the recommended procedure. I'd hate to remove a new ball joint and try it and just hope it works. There's got to be a little trick I'm not doing...so who can help??