Hey Lost Jeepers with Al's A Arms,
A few weeks ago I got a lot of bad noise from the right front wheel area, which sounded like loud, dangerous creaking and squeaking. I took the Jeep to a shop near my work and had them look at it. Turns out the upper ball joint was shot. Since I have Al's upper control arms from JBA, it was easy to have the shop order the correct part and install it. I had them install a high quality TRW ball joint with a lifetime warranty. It seemed to fix the problem.
Since the repair, I have gotten intermittent creaking from the same location. Sometimes it is silent and other times I sounds like it's about to fall apart (though not as bad as before the repair, and that was constant bad). Sometimes it will be fine for a while and then the noise will come back. I called the shop and they were sure it was properly greased (seemed a little insulted that I had even asked) and said it was probably old bushings. But the noise was not there until the first ball joint crapped out.
Since it has been a couple of weeks now and the noise still happens, I imagine something could be wrong. I can hear it on the highway but the noise is most prominent at slow speeds under 30 mph. It isn't related to braking or to tire rotation, but rather very small articulations of the IFS.
Is this the infamous "torque the bolts with the Jeep on the ground" issue or does it sound like more than that? Anyone else had creaking/squeaking noises after fixing a ball joint?
Thanks for the feedback!
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