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Ball Joints and mushy rubber

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Jedi Warrior
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What is it with the rubber boots used on the Triumph front suspension ball joints? The ball joints on my car can be no more than 2 or 3 years old and they're already starting to fall apart. You can literally pull the rubber apart with your hands.
This is on a car that never sees any type of weather and is not exposed to road salts, sand or even dirt.

Is there a certain type of lubricant that causes them to get mushy? If so, is there also one that doesn't do this?

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Unfortunately, you've found a common ailment that has hit others - due to vendor issues with the available part suppliers. Not sure what the perfect cure is other than experimenting with the vendors to see whose parts holds up.

Randy
 
I think it's just a crap shoot. I've installed boots bought at the same time from the same vendor, on the same car with the same lubricant; and had one fall apart within months while the other lasted for years. Poor quality control at some point in the manufacturing process, is my guess.

Seems like I've had better luck with the boots from TRF, but that could be just chance. I robbed the tie rods & center link from TS39781LO the other day, and most of the boots were good enough to reuse. They've been on there since before VTR 2000 (and came from TRF IIRC). Ball joint boots look good too (but I didn't need them).
 
This isn't the answer, but I made a temporary repair on a new, holed boot with black RTV about five years ago. Much to my surprise, it is still holding strong.
Poor quality rubber products have long been a topic of rants by many LBC owners.
 
Do you guys think it's the lubricant that does this?

It's almost as if the lube attacks the rubber, if that's what they're using, but I bet it's some type of compounded goo.

When I install new ball joints, I may try a different type of lubricant, maybe a Teflon or something on one of them just to see what happens.
 
The rubber boots on the ball joints and tie rod ends got mushy, sticky and got cuts in them about 3 years ago after only about 2 or 3 years in place. I only drive in the summer and mostly in good weather. I had been using black all-purpose grease for ball joints, etc. So I bought new boots for all of these and changed them 2 years ago. At that time I decided that it might have been the rubber, but it might also be the grease - or maybe a combination of both. So I have been using red Amsoil synthetic grease for these last two years (8,000 miles) and the boots still look great. I plan to give it a longer test, so I'll be able to tell you the results of this experiment in about another 5 or 10 years.
 
This is a problem I've experienced with rubber parts for years (on LBCs)... boots, seals, etc... These days, much if the stuff is sourced from Mom-and-Pop outfits in India, China, and the like... where there is absolutely no quality control when it comes to materials. There are no longer any "factory" supplier engineers qualifying the vendor base. The best you can do is buy from one of the better parts suppliers (TRF, Moss, etc...) and if/when you get something that's bad, bitch about it...
 
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