Ball joints with coilover shocks and other issues

[sepulvedac]

O, I did a search and found nothing but bad news about the coil over shocks. Not a problem, I can fix that. This are the issues I found yesterday while working on my car.

>>Disclaimer: I will go on as much detail as I can so please, bear with me and my poor English grammar.<<

First of all , I have a 72 Ghia convertible that I drive daily. From the hard ball to my house is 1 mile of off-road, and I mean, off-road. Bumps, potholes, uphill, etc. Since the last repairs to the front suspension on August '09 I drive on that road at 5MPH.. it literally takes me between 20-25 minutes to get to my house. Anyway, Thursday I was arriving at the property and my lower ball joint on the driver side gave up. Check the pics below.
On Friday I replaced the lower ball joint

This is the passenger side tire to fender look with good ball joints

This is the driver side tire to fender look with broken lower ball joint

This are pics of the torsion arm with broken ball joint and a comparison of the new and broken ball joint

Also replaced both front shock absorbers, you guessed, with coilover shocks. After replacing the passenger side shock absorber I checked both ball joints on that side to make sure they were still up to speed. No luck there, both of their boots are torn. The ball joints still have grease so that is good. I will call around my neck of the woods to see if I can get the boots.
Upon closer examination, I also noticed that the lower torsion arms are not parallel to the upper ones. Never noticed that before and never had a problem since I bought the Ghia back in 1996. But I started to think that maybe the misalignment of the torsion arms against each other could be the cause of two broken ball joints in a year and the other two ball joints on the passenger side with torn boots. Just for more info, I use coil over shocks front and back and all four shocks are clicked up as high as they can go due to the terrain I go thru to get to the house... like I mentioned before, I replaced the four ball joints and the four tie rod ends last August, what are the chances that it is the shocks causing this? If not the shocks and due to the fact that I drive 5MPH for a mile to get to my house avoiding as many pot holes as I can, what could be the cause of this? Any lights on this?

Thanks,
Carlos

[tripicana]

its not the trailing arms, they are not parallel to each other.

the balljoint issue could be a couple of things;
cheap quality rubber boots
or possibly the coil over shocks are causing the b/j's to ride at their max travel height, thus tearing.

i would probably throw some regular shocks on it. it should ride better, and still have enough clearance to get you home.

get some rocks or gravel and fill in the potholes.
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[sepulvedac]

I guess i am going to have to go with the coilover shocks theory since the b/j are FEBI which I understand are a great quality. Sooo, I will be replacing the shocks with regular ones and installing new boots. Any suggestions on getting the trailing arms out without destroying the b/js? I usually have to deal with the upper part of the b/j because when i change them, they are already broken into two pieces.

[shred625]

You need to use a ball joint popper and remove the spindle first. If you are pulling the arms it is a good idea to replace all the ball joints. They are cheap and its good insurance. The majority of the 9 car guys replace the ball joint for every race.
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[sepulvedac]

Well, I will take your advice but right now money is really short. trying to sell some parts so I am going to be posting here also. I know the are cheap but that would be right now $120 installed for all three of them. That is me taking them out. A friend of mine which just so happen that is my mechanic also recommended to replace all of them. I did that last year. Again I am not racing, I am just driving at 5MP over a bumpy road. I found some used shocks that I am going to use to replace the ones I have on the Ghia right now to see how it goes. He also gave me as an alternative to replacing the b/j some tar based paper, really flexible. Told me to fill the boot with grease, wrap the boot with this paper which has glue on one side so it will be overlapped to make a seal and use zip ties to hold it in place. I will give it a try, save some money and replace the b/j soon so I will have complete piece of mind.
BTW,what is a b/j popper? The tool that looks like a fork? I already popped the top one by just hitting the torsion arm on the side. I will use that tool for the bottom one when it is time for replacement. Again, thanks.