Did a search on this as remember it coming up before with @zed and @Marc Mears I've fitted 4 new balljoints today and during reassembly on one side the spindle/knuckle could be turned as expected, but reassembling the drivers side I was thinking thinking this is too stiff, and low and behold it is, the steering is way too heavy. What's the general opinion - hold out and see if they loosen up, or just swap out the affected 1/2 I'm not sure what brand these balljoints are - (no markings on them) as I bought a set of 4 arms off ebay with new joints pressed in for £100, so best to assume they're the cheapest available!
I had a lot of trouble with them and have no real idea why. 1st set were Meyle and I'm informed these are now made slightly oversized to compensate for arms that will have had a few sets in and out by now. Not sure whether I believe that or not. After IIRC about 3,000 miles I junked them and bought the cheapest ball joints I could find. These might have come from GSF. 7,000 miles later they're still stiff when it's jacked up, but appear to have worn in ok at driving height. The problem with stiffies of course is the steering looses it's natural self centring and along with the bit of play always found in bay steering this makes driving in a straight line tiring to say the least. Add to that a rather poor early steering box and driving the van hasn't been fun for a long while. That was until a couple of weeks ago when I upgraded the box to a late bay one and now the steering centres and it's fun again. The joints are still stiffer than I'd like though - I disconnected the track rods to check while I was changing the box. Maybe try for a few hundred miles and see? Maybe junk them now and try some others.
