Grease Boots Dry Rotted

[hooD]

All of the front end suspension parts on my Cuda are original (1973) having only 35k miles on them.  Anyway, the rubber boots which hold the grease are cracked and split and the grease just comes out when you grease them.   The upper and lower ball joints and the inner and outter tie rods leak grease. The only boot seals that looks any good is the pitman arm. 

Where does this leave me? 
a) Do I need all new parts
b) Do nothing
c) Grease them anyway and keep driving
d) Get a second job to pay for parts
e) None of the above

[bb71challenger]

If your boots are junk the rest is not far behind as far as I am concerned. Our cars are worth too much to take a chance, especially on steering or braking systems. I would bite the bullet and get a full moog front end kit and get to work. Hey it will give you a good excuse to drink some beer and order pizza 

[Chryco Psycho]

Rubber will dry rot without harming the joint , you can get new boots IF the joints are in good conditioin either from the Help section of your local parts store or from Energy suspension in Poly

[autoxcuda]

I'm pretty sure the original tie rod boots are different than the aftermarket ones. Aftermarket ones just sort of slide tightly around the tie rod end. The original tie rod ends have a snap sort of design. I think you can get the original style boots from Mopar.

IIRC, the original style lower ball joint boots are NS1 not available. But not that long ago. Might find some with the NOS dealers.

Call Troy @ Westoaks Dodge Mopar Performance at 1-800-748-6118 x255.

He knows what you are looking for. He just restored the original suspensions pieces on a OE type resto he personally restored on his low mile 70 Challenger T/A.

Here's picture of his car. Notice it doesn't have those bell umbrella type tie rod and idler arm seals. Notice the square ring on the bottom edge of the boots on the tie rods. That has a steel core inside the ring.

The idler seal is different that the tie rod seals it appears.

[Bullitt-]

Energy Suspensions sells a ball joint dust boot kit, the upper fit pretty well but the lowers were too big & I ended up using a tie rod boot. Also the tie rod boots they ship in their "complete" kit are too large so I ordered smaller ones, like stated before they do not seal in the grooves like the OE's but appear to be functional.

[Aussie Challenger]

Rubber will dry rot without harming the joint , you can get new boots IF the joints are in good conditioin either from the Help section of your local parts store or from Energy suspension in Poly

 
  Providing dirt and water hasn't got into the joints they will be fine, before putting the new boots on give the joint a grease so that the new grease will expel any small particles of dirt, wipe off before fitting.
  I am sure that you will be able to buy good decent dust boots as they are available here in Australia, that is the proper sealing ones.      

[hooD]

Wow, thanks for the wealth of information!  I have never done any suspension work before, except for when I installed my headers I had to undo the driver's side tie rod ends to fit the header in and that was like over 30 years ago, so I forgot anything I learned from that experience.  Anyway, how does a new boot go on?  And how does the old one come off?  Do I need to take any of the nuts, cotter pins off? 

 *Aussie Challenger.....I'm quite sure that the joints are clean, because the car is not driven in rain....ever!  And I grease my front end at every oil change.  I usually drive around 200 miles per summer so there is not alot of dirt or anything getting into the joints. 

 *autoxcuda....Thanks for the pictures and I may be using that phone number you gave me when I get ready to replace the grease boots.

 *bullitt99......If they don't seal in the grooves as you said, will they leak grease?

[Winston]

Just came across the picture on this - I am dealing with the same issue as you see in this picture.  Usually when you use castle nuts, the nut goes on, they tighten and you line them up with a hole and throw the cotter (sp) pin in to keep the nut from turning.  Mine looks just like this picture where the nut screws on and tightens further up the threads, therefore allowing the cotter pin to just sit in the hole, not really holding the nut in place.  Is this the correct way? 

[NoMope Greg]

hooD, if you can afford it, by all means do the suspension.  It's one of the easiest major systems to do, especially on a Mopar because of the torsion bars instead of springs.  I've done it twice, the first time with help, the second time by myself.  There are a couple of difficult items - separating the ball joints from the spindle with a BFH can be a pain in the a$$, getting the upper ball joint out of the UCA and the bushing out of the LCA may require you to take those parts to a shop, but overall, it's not to difficult.  Typically pretty dirty, though.

[BIGSHCLUNK]

I've seen the boots at my local NAPA. Maybe no the exact shape, but they did have different sizes. I due to replace one or two on NIKKI!!

[Bullitt-]

 *bullitt99......If they don't seal in the grooves as you said, will they leak grease?

Long term I cannot say, they seem to snug down pretty well & conform to the metals shape but I have observed some ooze after installation that you could say was caused by over filling.

[Bullitt-]

Knew I had seen this somewhere....Lotta $ for a hand full of rubber
http://www.monicattichrysler.com/comersus/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=1440

[hooD]

Knew I had seen this somewhere....Lotta $ for a hand full of rubber
http://www.monicattichrysler.com/comersus/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=1440

Thanks bullitt,  its probably still cheaper than the actual parts. 

[MrMopar440]

  That is a TON for that little bit of rubber. Guess I will keep my spilt ones for now and keep topping off the grease.

[Aussie Challenger]

Thanks bullitt,  its probably still cheaper than the actual parts. 

  Obviously somebody wants to reduce their over draft real quick at the expense of other people. Those prices are highway robbery.       
  Go to NAPA, their prices have to be cheaper. I know when I was over last year they went out of their way to track down older parts for my Challenger and at good prices.