Hey, so I'm replacing all my steering components and figured I'd change out the ball joints with some MOOG ones. When I checked the oem bottom ball joint, it could move freely, (with some resistance), and I was thinking that it was about to fail and was lucky to have it not fall off. Then after I put the new one on I noticed it could still swing around quite a bit similar to the 140k mile one. I'm assuming that it's in perfect condition but I thought that ball joints were suppose to have very little if no play at all.

Then while removing the top one, I used the press on the top, (pushing on the bolt upwards), and it was very easy for the bolt to push up. Is that what a less than perfect condition ball joint should do?

I'm just trying to figure out how exactly these things work. The bottom ball joint can move around with decent resistance, whereas the top bolt is extremely difficult to push around.

Searched around a bit and the consensus is that ball joints should have NO play. I'm confused!

 

the upper balljoint actually only moves up and down