Time for new ball joints?
- Thread starter KNBlazer
- Start date
Robbabob
Member
- Dec 10, 2012
- 1,096
Looking pretty bad...
Lift up the wheel by the placing your jack under the lower control arm. Once the tire is suspended, see how much play you have by lifting and moving the wheel around. It takes some effort as you are lifting all the weight of the entire assembly. It takes a little more effort than when checking your hub for play.
Lift up the wheel by the placing your jack under the lower control arm. Once the tire is suspended, see how much play you have by lifting and moving the wheel around. It takes some effort as you are lifting all the weight of the entire assembly. It takes a little more effort than when checking your hub for play.
- Feb 8, 2012
- 811
Robbabob said:
About to do that right now...just watched a couple videos over on youtube...
**UPDATE**
there is slight play and metal to metal tapping when moving Passenger side tire at 12 and 6, none on the driver's side... but boot is torn and I see some grease... more money into this damn truck...
replace the lower control arms......
ball joints have a pretty good life expectancy.... if the ball joint is bad (probably 100k+ miles on it) then the bushings on the rest of the arm are no good. Way easier to change too....
ball joints have a pretty good life expectancy.... if the ball joint is bad (probably 100k+ miles on it) then the bushings on the rest of the arm are no good. Way easier to change too....
hockeyman
Member
- Aug 26, 2012
- 726
If it were me, I'd go ahead and replace all of them too. *That is, if they weren't recently done.
Oh, and the lowers gave me a much harder time to remove than the uppers. Replacing the top ball joints on my '03 (with 125k) went smooth. The lowers...not so much. It's a good learning experience though.
Keep plenty of beer close by. Have a few while doing them and you'll be fine.
Oh, and the lowers gave me a much harder time to remove than the uppers. Replacing the top ball joints on my '03 (with 125k) went smooth. The lowers...not so much. It's a good learning experience though.
Keep plenty of beer close by. Have a few while doing them and you'll be fine.
- Feb 8, 2012
- 811
Fire06 said:
It's a PITA installing if you don't have the right adapters.... the set I used was an OTC set and some add-ons... ended up using the socket method I found on youtube... before you buy any type of adapter, know which ball joints you're gonna go with... that damn socket wasn't cheap... it was $21 at Sears....
this is the video I used as a reference...
[video=youtube_share;rEatj_xVnqE]http://youtu.be/rEatj_xVnqE[/video]