upper and lower ball joints and sway bar links

will5857

Original poster
Member
Sep 2, 2014
33
Hey Everyone. I'll start off by saying I have limited knowledge. I have bad front sway bar links, took it to a mechanic and he said the upper and lower ball joints had play as well and needed to be replaced. He was going to charge around 2500 for it all. My question is, is it risky to keep driving with bad joints? Any risk of the wheel falling off? I have about 112,000 miles on them. I have a friend who can help me replace everything but not for a couple months or so.

Thanks!
 

HARDTRAILZ

Moderator
Nov 18, 2011
49,665
Jack it up and grab the tire at top and bottom and see how much play is in them. They can fail and do some nasty damage, but have to usually be awful for a bit first. If the play is minimal you can likely get by but will have some extra tire wear. I would think a mechanic would be more around $500 reasonably and its $100 if you can do it yourself or maybe look for a member in your area to help and you can learn some.
 

djthumper

Administrator
Nov 20, 2011
14,950
North Las Vegas
You have limited knowledge but how mechanically inclined are you? If there is someone in your area that can help sooner it may help keep the costs down more. If you have the tools just get the book and do it yourself.
 

SnowBlazer

Member
Jun 9, 2014
5,775
Colorado Springs
I did the UBJ's with the help of two of my buddies. Took us about four hours (not including a Little Caesars pizza break) mainly because we were not sure what to do.... Follow this video, it shows how to do everything to the "T".


http://youtu.be/l3SJwitttwo
 
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Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,262
Ottawa, ON
Like the others said, depends on how worn they are. $2500 seems way too steep for me. Did you go to a dealer? I would go to other independent shops to get more estimates.
 

blautens

Member
Jan 2, 2013
14
For $2500 I'd like to think they're proposing to replace just about everything that's a wear item up front, but as long as you're jacking it up, look very carefully at the control arm bushings, upper and lower, sway bar bushings, and your inner and outer tie rods. The tie rods might be okay, but I'd be willing to be your control arm bushings are pretty much done. You might be able to tell by the play between the control arm and the mountings (and perhaps the sound - do they squeak or make any noise, like a clicking when you wiggle them), but you can also be able to see the rubber parts sort of squeezing out of the bushing.

I mention this to perhaps save you some work - because if you need lower control arm bushings, most people just buy the whole lower control assembly rather than press out old and the press in new bushings (unless you're a sadist, like me, and do both), and that would already have a new lower ball joint in it.

The upper ball joint is in the spindle, though, as that video shows, so upper control arm replacement (which is super easy) won't get you out of pressing out/in a ball joint there. But the upper ball joint is fairly easy to replace.
 
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Robbabob

Member
Dec 10, 2012
1,096
Pretty sure what hasn't been mentioned yet, is when jacking up the vehicle to check the play, be sure to actually jack it up by the wheel suspension (not the frame). I'm not sure if this rule is for checking the ball joints or the hub/bearing, either way, pretty sure it is the correct direction.

Like the input about replacing the entire LCA.

Good luck!

Edit: might be just as easy to replace the UCA as well.
 

jsinga

Member
Jan 5, 2014
38
GA
Man, for $2500 you could buy a complete high end tool set from sears, floor jack, jack stands air compressor and impact wrench.
Order the parts from rockauto and watch CrisFix vids for a couple of days and do it yourself next weekend.
Oh you will need some place to store your kick butt tool set after you finish!

Both upper and lower balljoints and front and rear swaybar end links are way less than $300 at rockauto if you buy the best parts.

JS
 

Daniel644

Member
Feb 27, 2015
573
will5857 said:
Hey Everyone. I'll start off by saying I have limited knowledge. I have bad front sway bar links, took it to a mechanic and he said the upper and lower ball joints had play as well and needed to be replaced. He was going to charge around 2500 for it all. My question is, is it risky to keep driving with bad joints? Any risk of the wheel falling off? I have about 112,000 miles on them. I have a friend who can help me replace everything but not for a couple months or so.

Thanks!
with the tools you don't even need help, 2500 is straight up them trying to rape you, I had the upper and lower ball joints and upper and lower control arm bushings and front shock spring assembly all replaced (me supplying parts and getting an alignment elsewhere) for 325 in labor on my firebird, even worst case scenario doing all 4 endlinks (front and rear) and all 4 ball joints your talking 300-400 in parts and a full day in the shop (10 hours tops, which is more then I spent doing it all on my TB) charging dealer labor rates of 120 an hour (which is on the higher end of dealer rates) that would still be closer to a 1500 all in and even that is crazy money, you could still BUY (not rent, like you can with the ball joint press) every tool you needed from jacks to wrenches and air impact and compressor to do the job and still be cheaper, plus you have tools now to fix other stuff.

Robbabob said:
Pretty sure what hasn't been mentioned yet, is when jacking up the vehicle to check the play, be sure to actually jack it up by the wheel suspension (not the frame). I'm not sure if this rule is for checking the ball joints or the hub/bearing, either way, pretty sure it is the correct direction.

Like the input about replacing the entire LCA.

Good luck!

Edit: might be just as easy to replace the UCA as well.
ball joints are up/down, hub bearing is left/right, suspension must be "loaded" as you describe for ball joints, just have the other front tire on the ground when checking the bearing so as to keep the wheel from turning to easily since the steering doesn't lock on these trucks.
 

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