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Originally Posted by lonezuk
The suspension has a ball joints on the ends of the upper and lower a-arms.
I suspect that the "new" factory ball joints are bad.
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Could be, but it might just be an assembly issue. One of the upper ball joints on our Gio 150 quad was loose from the factory. no amount of tightening would take up the slop. Upon closer examination, I noticed that the top of the ball joint would wiggle as the suspension deflected. I removed the joint from the spindle and found that the ball joint has what is likely a neoprene seat that is not greasable (no zerk in place). The socket of the joint is machined, the neoprene seat is installed, the ball stud is dropped in from the top, a disc is placed on top of the ball stud and then the edges of the socket are rolled over to crimp the disc in place. The disc wasn't completely crimped on this joint, although the other three were fine. Since the 150 was a new product back then, John at Gio didn't have replacement ball joints yet, and I couldn't find an exact match elsewhere. Before cutting up the control arm to accept a different ball joint, I worked on the stock unit.
I tried to use my hydraulic press to further crimp the top of the socket, but I couldn't find a way to support such an odd shape in the press. I ended up holding the control arm and joint over a block of wood and working it with a ball pein hammer until the disc was firmly crimped in place (with the joint boot removed). I was a bit too agressive, but it worked great, and we've been riding it since 2006. Check out the photos; you can just barely notice a gap between the socket and the disc in the first pic.
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