K2500 LCA help identifying this piece

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TommyJ1980

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So this lower ball joint- the rubber boot looks like it maybe got laid on or something in transit. It has folds/creases in it but it’s intact, and held grease. I’m just wondering if the misshapen-ness would make it more prone to loose grease and eventual failure at some point? The other side was nice and rounded.
 

TommyJ1980

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Not that I know of.
They have been discontinued, and nobody, like nobody has them. Rock auto didn’t, Detroit axle advertised them but the ad is incorrectly labeled, they are really uppers. It took me a few hours worth of work to figure out this Astro thing and I would probably be digging around in junkyards if I hadn’t.
 

454cid

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So this lower ball joint- the rubber boot looks like it maybe got laid on or something in transit. It has folds/creases in it but it’s intact, and held grease. I’m just wondering if the misshapen-ness would make it more prone to loose grease and eventual failure at some point? The other side was nice and rounded.

You need to squeeze all that grease out of there, and clean off the tapers before assembling the knuckles onto them. Tapers don't get greased, and the boots will be over filled since the boots aren't compressed by the knuckle. Balljoints get greased after, not before assembly.
 

Caman96

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They have been discontinued, and nobody, like nobody has them. Rock auto didn’t, Detroit axle advertised them but the ad is incorrectly labeled, they are really uppers. It took me a few hours worth of work to figure out this Astro thing and I would probably be digging around in junkyards if I hadn’t.
He was asking me about the Astro LCA’s, I’m aware ours were discontinued.
 

someotherguy

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He’s right, I bent the press I got trying to get the lower ball joint out, then cracked the LCA trying to smack it out with a mallet.
I see a lot of references to the "forged" LCA's on some of these trucks and I should start with I'm not a 4WD guy so I have very little hands-on experience with these, never really looked hard at them, so here's my take. If that LCA was forged I seriously doubt you would have been able to crack it trying to smack the ball joint out. Looking at your picture I see what appears to be a part line right across the middle of the arm.. I wonder if these are cast? Would make a lot more sense. We would hope they're forged, but I'm kinda starting to doubt it.

On the other subject of 1500 vs. 2500 parts compatibility, again unsure on 4WD stuff but on the 2WD's the pockets in the frame are identical, C1500/C2500/C3500. You can swap the arms between all three of those trucks. The only differences are the C2500/C3500 uppers are forged (and do really appear to be forged; they look similar to tubular aftermarket UCA's) and the ball joints have a larger stud in them so the spindle must match.

And yeah; it can be a real bear shoving the control arm into the frame pockets, especially the lowers. When I rebuilt the front end on my old '92 C1500 I used a Porta-Power with the claw attachment to gently spread the frame pockets for the LCA's, then install. Otherwise there seemed to be literally no chance they were ever going to go in.

Richard
 
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