What is a Currie Johnny Joint

WJCO

WJCO

Meme King
This question comes up a lot, so I thought I'd start a thread that may hopefully help out. A Johnny Joint is made by Currie Enterprises. They either come as a fixed housing Weld on style like on an upper axle mount or they come as the type with the threaded section for use with an adjustable arm. The Johnny joint is a very large, tight joint, but the ball assembly inside allows smooth pivoting and less binding as the axle moves. They bind less than a polyurethane bushing are are affordable to rebuild. I'm not an expert, so if anyone has anything else to add, please do.

Here's some pics from Ddays' build thread comparing them to other types of arm ends. The larger gold-colored ones in the pictures are the Currie Johnny Joints:


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Here's a Johnny Joint's internals. Basically, the order of parts that goes in the metal housing is WASHER, BUSHING, BALL ASSY, BUSHING, WASHER, SNAP RING. You can see that the housing has a snap ring groove and a hole for a grease zerk.


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That's what makes the Johnny joint so nice. It is strong enough to take serious off-road punishment, yet still has rubber isolation qualities of a stock JK joint.


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Goldeneagle1LC said:
Awesome link that answer my questions perfectly. Basically a Jonny Joint is a rebuild-able Heim with more flex.
Click to expand...

Basically to sum it up, johnny joints have "rubber" bushings to help absorb the shock sent up the arm when hitting bumps on the road. A lot better for daily driving.

Heim joints are metal on metal, or as stated a teflon coating on the inside. Heims are strictly pull off and replace, no rebuilding involved, once the joint goes bad, it must be replaced. Also, heim joints have no give when it comes to daily driving and hitting bumps on a daily basis wears them out quickly. People love heim joints just for their simplicity and they are very affordable.

This is why you see heims used a lot on various parts throughout custom builds, tierods, custom hydro steering, hi steer setups, etc. A lot of people whos' rigs are strictly trailed trail rigs use heims a lot. People who faily their jeeps, tend to spend the extra money and get the johnny joints.

Side note: i remember reading somewhere the johnny joints actually "swivel" further. The ball inside has more range of motion then heims.


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