The ends can be dissasembled to clean. Take the screw plug out of the ends and pull out the cups and spring. Check the spring, they sometimes come out in peices. Also check the cups to make sure they are in good condition, not scorred. The ball should be checked for wear also, they tend to get oval shaped. As mentioned in another post orginal balls do not screw in, but aftermarket can be bought that way. I got my originals out after drilling a hole part way down the middle and then using a punch. This advice is for the old style ends. Somewhere around 53 they changed the drag link ends to the new style. This is probalby what the factory assy manual shows as most sstuff in there seems to be for 54's. When I did my 50 I replaced the old style drag link with the new.
