Shocks, suspension, ball joints, oh my!

[Happies]

Hi everyone, I am a long time lurker and have gotten some very useful information from the forums. I replaced my front upper/lower ball joints a few years ago thanks to the great walkthroughs posted here but have recently started to have issues with my driver side upper joint again. I am trying to narrow down what has caused the join to wear prematurely (15k miles or so) and have a few ideas. Any advice anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.

1995 Explorer XLT, lifted, 2WD 4 door, 265/75/15's right now
I am guessing any or all of these below could contribute to the wear but not sure where to attack the problem from

• Low quality joints, last set came from this ebay seller. None of the other joints seem to be in bad shape however...
• Damaged Shock (picture below)
• Lift - not certain how it was done or the height, I was told it is 2"

As you can see the shock does not look so hot (driver side) but I am not sure if this would put additional stress on the joint. If the shock is the problem I suppose I will need to replace both front, but in order to get the right size I believe I need to know my lift height?

The lift - I was told it was 2" but not certain if that is the case or not.

The upper joint - boot is basically blown out at the bottom, can i just replace the boot or will I need to redo the entire upper joint?

More images are posted here, some shots of lower joint and passenger side for comparison. I spent a hefty chunk of the day yesterday researching what I could but I am sure there are some nuggets of wisdom out there that I haven't even considered yet =P

 

[rabbit91]

whats the ubolt for on the rear leafs?

 

[Happies]

To keep them straight maybe, I got the truck like that and never messed with them. When I had my alignment done the mechanic banged some of the leafs back together as they were a little misaligned and tightened the ubolts back up.

 

[corkey]

hmmm, i don't see a good front shot, but assume the front lift was a simple torsion twist, and yes, that would put strain on all the balljoints and tie rods,,

 

[colintrax]

The shock looks fine to me, just the shaft cover has a dent. I'd go ahead and replace all 4 ball joints. moog. Some people will agree with me, others wont.

Post some better pictures (farther back) of the suspension so we can see the "lift"
If you want, use a flat head to bend the shaft cover back out, got a feeling it squeaks or makes a noise as it drags down the shock body.

 

[colintrax]

Sorry, just saw the other pics. Looks to me like that lift is lowering it. I have ubolts connected to an extra helper spring to lift my rear end. But that is connecting the leaf pack to the flatter overload spring which would flatten out the entire pack.

 

[corkey]

it is not connected to the overloader,,

 

[colintrax]

^ ahh, I see. Looks like it's pushing down on it instead

 

[Happies]

Sorry it took so long to post back, been reading everything I can find about lifts and whatnot. I have a slightly better understanding of what is what now but it is a lot to take in for someone new to this =P

Added some new shots at this blog post (figured I'd save the site some bandwidth). It appears the shackles are new, I believe I have at least one additional leaf. I am guessing there was some sort of torsion adjustment done so I added some shots that may be able to identify whether or not that is the case.

Again, thanks for all of the help so far.