American Iron Off-road Ball Joint Deletes

GP NOIR

GP NOIR

Hooked
I have a 2012 Wrangler Rubicon and need to replace the upper and lower ball joints at the steering knuckle.

I came across the ball joint deletes by American Iron Off-road. They replace the ball joints with a different design that’s rebuildable. They claim the deletes are much more durable than ball joints. The deletes cost $600 for my Jeep.

Anyone have experience with these, good or bad?
 
I don't know man... How long did the stock joints last?

American Iron $600 for a set + $200 for each rebuild kit. Rx rebuild every 2 years
Dynatrc $630 for a set + $150 for each rebuild kit. No rebuild life listed
Synergy $300 for a set + $75 to rebuild lowers. No rebuild life listed
Spicer $200 per pair non rebuildable, $400 total
 
CalSgt said:
I don't know man... How long did the stock joints last?

American Iron $600 for a set + $200 for each rebuild kit. Rx rebuild every 2 years
Dynatrc $630 for a set + $150 for each rebuild kit. No rebuild life listed
Synergy $300 for a set + $75 to rebuild lowers. No rebuild life listed
Spicer $200 per pair non rebuildable, $400 total
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If they’re the original ball joints, they lasted about 136,000 miles. The Jeep had 122,000 on it when I got it in February.

I see that the American Iron set has a two year warranty, but nothing about needing to be rebuilt every two years.

I’m going to look into the Dynatrac & Synergy sets. Thanks for the tip.
 
GP NOIR said:
If they’re the original ball joints, they lasted about 136,000 miles. The Jeep had 122,000 on it when I got it in February.

I see that the American Iron set has a two year warranty, but nothing about needing to be rebuilt every two years.

I’m going to look into the Dynatrac & Synergy sets. Thanks for the tip.
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dynatrac are not so rebuildable friendly and depending on how you wheel, how large a tire you are running and wheel backspace, they don't last any longer than a HD balljoint

I've got an extra set of dynatrac ball joints and a rebuild kit but replaced them with spicer HD since I had everything taken apart and didn't want to wait the time it takes for the dynatrac glue dry time.

This is on my 2010 JKU
 
jeeeep said:
dynatrac are not so rebuildable friendly and depending on how you wheel, how large a tire you are running and wheel backspace, they don't last any longer than a HD balljoint
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This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this about the Dynatracs.

Currently running 315/75R-17 KM3s. I think rim backspace is 5 inches?

Off-road in a variety of terrain, rocks, loose shale, sand, dirt, snow, ice, some mud. I’d like something durable.

(Someday, I’d like to try 37s but my understanding is, my JK axles would need some beefing up first.)
 
Are there a lot of people running these? You could buy em and report back if they suck or not. You have to spend a couple hundred bucks regardless of what BJs you get.

However, if the owner is truly a douche, I would not buy them because I actively try to not buy from douches since so many of our day to day purchases are indirectly traced back to douches.

Also safety on the highway would be a concern for me since this is just some dude. Have they been engineered?
 
I would love to say and believe he has once and for all solved the off roaders question to ball joints that last forever and are the “end all be all”. I’d buy a set right now. Do they work and hold your knuckle to the axle? Sure.

At the end of the day it’s a balljoint that takes a lot of stress and, regardless of what you are running, will wear out and need service/replacement especially when upgrading to much heavier wheels/tires and receiving abuse on the trail.

I do follow his page since, as a company, I’m always curious to new products and get asked about these. My answer is usually “They are a new product and would like to see more real world and long term use before forming an opinion”.

As I have followed the page, there have been several failures or “issues” which have usually resulted in a huge fanboy response saying how great they are. Reminds me of some other products. Some of the issues were the actual shaft braking. Others were on road drivability issues or problems during install. But of course they received “good customer service”.

Does every product have its issues? Absolutely! But I’m far from sold as these being the greatest thing since sliced bread. F5C150C3-A0E0-4CF4-A2BB-343E7F8F149C.jpeg
 
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Disciple Off Road said:
I would love to say and believe he has once and for all solved the off roaders question to ball joints that last forever and are the “end all be all”. I’d buy a set right now. Do they work and hold your knuckle to the axle? Sure.

At the end of the day it’s a balljoint that takes a lot of stress and, regardless of what you are running, will wear out and need service/replacement especially when upgrading to much heavier wheels/tires and receiving abuse on the trail.

I do follow his page since, as a company, I’m always curious to new products and get asked about these. My answer is usually “They are a new product and would like to see more real world and long term use before forming an opinion”.

As I have followed the page, there have been several failures or “issues” which have usually resulted in a huge fanboy response saying how great they are. Reminds me of some other products. Some of the issues were the actual shaft braking. Others were on road drivability issues or problems during install. But of course they received “good customer service”.

Does every product have its issues? Absolutely! But I’m far from sold as these being the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’ve had my Dynatrac ball joints for well over 80k miles with 0 issues.View attachment 377831
Click to expand...
Intersting pictured failure on a Milestar
 
GP NOIR said:
I see that the American Iron set has a two year warranty, but nothing about needing to be rebuilt every two years.
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The 2 year bit is in the rebuild kit verbiage.

I have nothing against any of the companies with rebuildable joints they all seem like good products. I actually really like a bunch of the people that work for Synergy/Polyperformance and try to support them when its reasonable but I'll probably end up with the Spicers when the time comes. At least with a regular joint you can just pick up a replacement at any parts house and do an oreily's parking lot overhaul to get you home

Screen Shot 2022-08-06 at 10.08.11 PM.png
 
I ran Dynatracs on my JK and they were good. Put 50k on them before I had to rebuild the driver side upper joint. All other joints were fine. Wasn’t hard to do but did take a while.
 
CalSgt said:
I don't know man... How long did the stock joints last?

American Iron $600 for a set + $200 for each rebuild kit. Rx rebuild every 2 years
Dynatrc $630 for a set + $150 for each rebuild kit. No rebuild life listed
Synergy $300 for a set + $75 to rebuild lowers. No rebuild life listed
Spicer $200 per pair non rebuildable, $400 total
Click to expand...
This right here ^^^
 
jeeeep said:
dynatrac are not so rebuildable friendly and depending on how you wheel, how large a tire you are running and wheel backspace, they don't last any longer than a HD balljoint

I've got an extra set of dynatrac ball joints and a rebuild kit but replaced them with spicer HD since I had everything taken apart and didn't want to wait the time it takes for the dynatrac glue dry time.

This is on my 2010 JKU
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LOL - so true. It always cracks me up when I hear people getting all excited about "rebuildable". Truth of the matter is, you still need to do most of the work that's needed to replace a set of ball joints and then the rebuilding part takes even more time and effort. I can literally change out ball joints faster than rebuilding them and without having to dick around with the rebuilding process.
 
Disciple Off Road said:
I would love to say and believe he has once and for all solved the off roaders question to ball joints that last forever and are the “end all be all”. I’d buy a set right now. Do they work and hold your knuckle to the axle? Sure.

At the end of the day it’s a balljoint that takes a lot of stress and, regardless of what you are running, will wear out and need service/replacement especially when upgrading to much heavier wheels/tires and receiving abuse on the trail.

I do follow his page since, as a company, I’m always curious to new products and get asked about these. My answer is usually “They are a new product and would like to see more real world and long term use before forming an opinion”.

As I have followed the page, there have been several failures or “issues” which have usually resulted in a huge fanboy response saying how great they are. Reminds me of some other products. Some of the issues were the actual shaft braking. Others were on road drivability issues or problems during install. But of course they received “good customer service”.

Does every product have its issues? Absolutely! But I’m far from sold as these being the greatest thing since sliced bread. View attachment 377831
Click to expand...
Thank you for posting this!

As others have mentioned, if this really were such a great idea, there would be at least dozen companies selling re-packaged ones made in china.
 
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