I'm replacing my disc brakes and some other steering components right now and have a question about installing the knuckle / spindle. You can see a gap in the photos below between the knuckle and the top of the axle / upper ball joint. Is that supposed to be there? I haven't torqued the ball joint castle nuts down yet, but that's as far up the ball joint that I can go by hand pressure. Is this gap something that goes away after torquing the nuts and lowering the vehicle? The old knuckle was hard to get off, so it's making me think it does torque down to close the gap more.

The new knuckle is a crown, the ball joints are MOOGK3134T.

 

Normal my Moogs were same way.

 

The real issue is if the nut is tight on that upper joint. If it is, don't worry about it

 

Per his comment he hasn't torqued it yet. Moog redesigned the rubber dust cover on the ball joints now they have a gap due to the boot not sticking down as much.

 

wow... good to know... that would not have been my initial guess either... will tuck this away for when I need to do mine in the future here.

 

For anyone who finds this thread in the future, I left the gap as is and torqued the bottom nut to 80 ft/lbs and the top one to 75 ft/lbs.

Relevant page from 1998 Service Manual:

 

The reason I said what I did is so that there could be allowance for dust cover variation or redesign. This kind of thing happens all the time and we need to be able to evaluate the situation. Knowing what I do about dust covers and how they have changed over the years, anything is possible