When installing new upper ball joints, Does the boot and bootretainer drop in from the top of the a-arm , or is it the retainer and boot supposed to bolt in under the a-arm and the ball joint drop in from the top side? I tried both ways and am not sure which is correct. If i try to push the retainer together with the ball joint assy. from the top, then i will have to use exsessive force to try and join together the joit and reatiner and then i will have to force the whole thing into the a-arm hole as it doesnt just slip right in . BUT I have seen a -arms where the ball joint assembly easily drops into the a-arm from the top and the boot and retainer are installed underneath with the bolts.This way there seems to be no problem putting the parts together, but will the grease leak out from the reatinerbecause its not sealed directly to the ball joint? Please let me know if you are 100% sure of the correct way to do this. Thanks

 

you gring the boot up from the bottom. if you think about it, it will make sense to you.

the balljoint is a hard wear part. it should be firmly connected to the car. the boot is a soft wear item, meaning it can wear out from thingsother than normal wear (rips form stretching, contaminants, outside objects hitting it, etc..), so if you needed to replace a boot, you wouldn't want to have to pull your whole balljoint

hope that helps

 

That helps alot, Thanks.