A little backstory before suggestions, to give you an idea of where I'm coming from.

Back in September 2021 both my delta joints on the Icon tubular UCAs were toast. Lots of play and clunking; they had 10k miles on them. Icon sent me replacement delta joints under warranty. Got that installed and I now have 1500 miles on them.

Today, I decided to check them as I was greasing them; decided to grease them every 1000-1500 miles, as last time I greased them every 5k. Maybe, I thought, that's why they failed.

So I noticed that the driver side has a little bit of movement at the balljoint. There's NO clunking, no noises and no drivability symptoms on the road. The passenger also moved a little, but seemingly not as much. So, first question, is it reasonable to see tiny movement at all? I have a vid of when my original set failed and the movement is not that much, not nearly, just a tiny bit with no clunks.

If this is not normal, then I'm not sure what's going on with these delta joints. Icon already told me that this was a one-time replacement as I'm not running their C/Os. I run Kings sent at 2.3" or so. Not too high. This means I'll be looking for new UCA options.

Recommend me a good UCA option, please. I am in CO, wheel a good amount in very dusty and occasionally muddy conditions. I drive around 10k a year overall. Should I consider uniballs? JBA? Originally I decided not to run uniballs for I HATE suspension noises and I thought that the delta joints would be more durable, but it may not be the case.

Any thoughts are very welcome, gang. Cheers.

Dirt King ball joint UCA's with their dust caps. Been running them for almost a year and have beat on them really hard, both crawling and dezert bombin. No clunks or noises at all, no play.

They use heavy duty, greaseable Moog ball joints which are available at many parts stores should you ever need a replacement on a trip.

Ball joint dust cap comes in black or red.

So I bought some Icon uppers with worn out delta joints from a customer at work, and he said he only had 15k on them and he said he was greasing them regularly. When I got them they were dry and rusted. I bought new joints and threw them in and made sure to submit the warranty info just in case. I’ve got about 1800 miles on mine now and just finished greasing them for the second time. When I was in there I didn’t notice any play. When I called icon and asked about the warranty on them they said that they felt comfortable enough to warranty them for 5 years because they feel like they should last at least 5 years, or maybe they hope that customers don’t keep their trucks for that long…. How are you checking for play? With weight on the lower or at full droop?

So here's what I did.

Raised the truck by the LCA. Then put a lever (like a 2x4) under the tire and pushed up while looking at the upper ball joint. The driver side def. has some movement, but very little. Passenger seems to have as well, but less, although it's harder for me to see as positioning calls for me to user my weaker side.

What got me to even check, was when I was greasing that driver side, the grease seemed to come out a wider glob if that makes sense, rather than thinner globs when it does out of the grease channels. This made me think that the grease is coming around the channel and if so, could there be increased tolerance? And so I went to check for play. Passenger side grease didn't have any abnormalities and movement seemed less.

On ither side it was less 'play' but more like some 'movement'.

I noticed that when the shop had these replaced 1500 miles ago, that one side was using a red grease and another a black/dark grease. I can't remember which was which, but even if they used a different grease, I can't imagine that it would have damaged the balljoint in just 1500 miles. These were pretty easy miles with not a lot of wheeling, given the winter season.

To reiterate, my first set failed at 10k even though they were greased every 5k as Icon recommends (they say 3-5k, but I was within that). I mean, I saw old grease being pushed out until new appeared, so I'm sure I've greased them correctly before they failed.

No one else seems to be having these issues with Icon delta joints, so I am not sure what's happening here. Unless some of the movement I see is normal, in which case I'll just continue greasing every 1-1.5k miles.

Thanks! If my current balljoints do turn out to be an issue, these look like a good option.

I’ve been reading more on upper ball joints and jeep forums seem to agree that some vertical play is normal for the uppers, though there should be no side to side play. I have zero side to side play in the joint in question, so maybe I’ve mis-diagnosed?

Some conflicting info out there it seems.

x2

tonight was the first time i had to replace anything. One of the ball joints was trashed and i was getting clunking. """pressed"""" out the old one (hammer and socket) gently """"Pressed"""" in the new one.

while i was at it, i replaced the bushings, they look fine though.

this was the first time i've touched them other then greasing in 40,000 miles. thats with hard desert driving, baja trip, and wife mobbing it at the mall.

I am super happy i went with ball joint/bushing setup this time around as opposed to heim/uniball

Well not so fast there. I’m at 1600~ miles on my joints and just noticed an issue. Where the zerk fitting is the metal is domed and has grease leaking out the sides. Just ordered the bilstein uppers. I think I’m done. Will get these warrantied and sell them after I fix it. Ughh! The bilstein sounds like a great alternative as it’s just a moog ball joint but will give me the caster I need.

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as a bonus, the dust cap has an oring and it actually seals pretty well. mine dried out and i replaced with ones i had on hand, now they take a dead blow to fully seat, nothin gets in there.