Dennis,

That's a good point.  I'll pay particular attention to the boots when I
grease them.  I generally add only a pump or two, depending on how the
boots look and they are all still intact.

I felt I had to do something after I disassembled three year old upper
ball joints that had intact boots but considerable slop and found rust
and very little grease.  At least I know now there is some grease in
there even if I never grease them again.  If they fail now they will
have lasted as long as the ones I took apart.  So far they still show no
detectable play.

Thanks again,

Ed

On Sun, 10 Jan 2016 21:43:22 -0500, Dennis Haynes
<d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Front end parts that need greasing use a different type of boot. They
need
>to let the excess grease out. If greasing sealed boots you will just
blow
>the boots out.
>
>Dennis
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of
>Ed McLean
>Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 4:39 PM
>To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>Subject: Re: Front end overhaul
>
>It's pretty easy to put real grease fittings in the upper and lower
ball
>joints and in the tie rod ends.  A squirt or two of grease every 6
months
>might keep you from doing the front end rebuild again for quite a few
years.
>I used Lemforder parts available from NAPA when I did this about two
years
>ago.  When I removed the old upper ball joint during this rebuild I
found
>rust in the less than three year old part.  I hope the grease fittings
will
>prevent this from happening again.  A Google search will show you how
to
>install the grease fittings.
>
>Now, the weak link is the upper control arm bushings.  I guess I'll
just
>have to spring for one of the improved parts now available.
>
>Ed