Category Archives: Porsche 911 Articles

Porsche 911 Ball Joint Replacement

Ball joints. Those little things on the bottom of the front control arms that hold just about everything together up there! When they go, or are worn out the front end of the car gets very sloppy and in some states, you won’t pass inspection.  The Porsche 911 uses one ball joint on each control arm. The top of the control arm is located with the strut tower. This makes the job relatively easy as you are only replacing two ball joints total.

You can test for ball joint play by jacking the car up, using a pipe or a crow-bar under the front tire, lever it up and down. There should be no movement. No “clacking” noise. Nice and solid. Of course, movement could also spell bad wheel bearings, but many times you’ll hear bad wheel bearings and bad ball joints won’t make a noise.

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Porsche 911 Front Shock – Strut Replacement

Although my 1987 Porsche 911 has less than 50K miles, the front end has felt a bit loose. If I did the standard shock absorber test of bouncing up and down on the front bumper, the car would rebound twice before settling down. Ball joints were also needed so I figured I’d do it all at once. The article on ball joint replacement can be found on this same web site.

Jack the car up and place proper supports under. You are going to be really pushing and pulling on the wrenches and you don’t want it falling off a simple jack.

Note: I did this whole procedure without removing the disc brake rotor, caliber or front hub. It took about 30 minutes per side this way.

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