does an unloaded balljoint need to be replaced?, want to disprove my friends pseudo logic Options

[808celica]

No................not really.....................

[enderswift]

thanks for the breakdown yellowchinaman,

if i wasn't feeling so awful right now id already be poking around and taking pics. however i am 100% sure that my breaks are not the cause here, i checked them time and again looking for signs of uneven wear on my rotor and everything looks like it should. The brakeline is secured as well. This leaves the steering and the shocks/springs. If it was the steering, wouldn't I get the same side effects as i would with a worn tie rod? or do you mean the rack and pinion? im asking because my steering works perfectly.

if i wasn't feeling so awful right now id already be poking around and taking pics.

[enderswift]

So i was feeling alot better the other day and decided to finally get things apart. as soon as i got the wheel off it was obvious, both the ball joint and tie rod end were leaking grease. when a week earlier they were both fine. how did this happen? i dont know. The passanger side is perfectly fine but the drivers side is leaking. So maybe taking things apart can do more harm than good sometimes...

Im guessing the balljoint and tie rod were really beat to hell from the couple times i wheel hopped accidentally and all the potholes that chicago is famous for. So taking things apart was probably the last straw. Both parts are still pretty tight so im guessing if i fix the tears and pack some more grease in there i should be good until i buy some replacements. Will it still make that annoying noise on acceleration? probably. but theres not much i can do about it now

[yellowchinaman]

I knew it was your steering rods.
Splitting the joints are easy. But if taking it apart properly, it wont. If it's not warn, you can still inject the greese and seal the slit with superglue.

[enderswift]

Yea you called it chinaman, but if you would have seen balljoint/tierod you would have been just as confused as i was. They were mint. Then a week later they were puking grease.