Sorry if I sounded grumpy, didn't mean to if I did any slop that is dangerous is going to be noticeable, try jacking up the front a little jsut to releive some of the tension on the suspension. Jackstands please(safety first) then take a dead blow mallet and lightly smack the various joints, if you here a muffled clunk after the initial contact, chances are its a bad joint. another way is to lay a finger across the joint with the tip touching the point that the joint attaches to and smack it (joint) with the hammer again, your finger you will find can easily discern movements down to .006 or so even without training you will just "know" it when you feel it

obviously a dial gage with a mag mount would be the most accurate but probably uneccessary at this level of work.

also your last statement could be correct also, without inspecting the thing myself can not say more to either direction.

once again good luck which ever way you go.

kenn

 

Kenn, I crawled under and shot these vids. Tell me if you see anything? I read somewhere that it should hesitate or even "pop" a little bit if it's real bad. This is just me on a saturday morning wondering. Can't get it in anywhere till monday at the earliest and I'm sort of impatient! Don't wanna drive it anywhere to fish or whatever if it's unsafe. Thanks to my Dad for not running over me while he worked the wheel...





Sorry about the rust... Welcome to the salt belt....

 

Not sure if parts are the same, but both of the front stabilizer links were broken on my 99 2wd when I bought it. Replaced them with Moog (part # K8772). Easy job. Hardest part will likely be removing the broken ones from the stabilizer bar.

 

max,

if it actually pops or grabs its past being dangerous its at russian roulette level.

if you watch the second video right around 10~12 seconds the dimensional relationship between the center link and the pitman arm change by about 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch (hard to tell by video exactly how much they are changing) if you watch it you will notice that the ball joint seems to sink in then comes back out, this is probably the slop they are concerend about.

what can, and I stress can happen is that under the right circumstance of bump and stress it can pull the ball socket apart if and I stress if it is worn enough. this part is easy to swap, you just need to rent the correct puller to sepperate the steering arm from the steering gear box try Napa, autozone, pepboys whereever most of them rent the tools now a days jsut to get you to buy the part.

now funny story about the salt belt, worn ball joints and me. when I was 16 in sullivan indiana (gods lint trapping belly button of nowwhere) this exact scenario happened to me. I was on my first unchaperoned date at the tender age of 16 in a 1967 cougar, the cougar uses a hydraulic ram with a valve control unit and ball joint. Its boring in rural indiana so fun is wehre you make it and I was busy jumpig railroad tracks (at slow speed) just enough to get a little "lift" and dammed if I did nto sepperate the ball joint on the power steering ram and lose all steering. fortunately for me I was only going about 20 MPH. but it was extremely embarrassing to have to call my grandma to come pick me and my date up.......


kenn

 

something I forgot, get a **** ton of PB blaster and soak everything about two hours before you start to pull it apart, just spray let it sit 15 minutes or so and spray it again and repeat till the one can is empty

As far as the stabilizer links go they are cheap and an easy swap should not need anything more than a set of wrenches or sockets.

kenn

 

Thanks Kenn. I'm actually laughing because after I shot the video, I soaked it with PB blaster just in case!! I'll keep that up.

I talked to a friend of mine (who was on vacation, or I probably never would have posted on here) and we're going to change it in the next week or so. I understand what everybody means by it being dangerous. It's not leaving the driveway till it has a new one.

I hate living in the rust belt. Love the area, upstate, NY, just not the salt. They've always spread salt, but now they have some sort of liquid stuff they spray. It works in temps well below where salt becomes ineffective. Can't imagine what on earth it does to cars... My truck was originally from Virginia. It had some rust, but very negligible. 2 years here and it looks like you sprayed peanut butter on almost everything underneath.

 

Ditto

 

ditto times 2

 

If you can do the work yourself, you could rebuild that whole front end for around $600.

 

I got a pair of end links from Napa about 8 years ago and they were much more HD than the Ford ones. They should still have them!