Unless somebody can tell me why I shouldn't, I'm about to buy one of their death wobble repair kits. The truck spent the day at the shop today and the ball joint on the track bar is trashed. I showed my mechanic the WC Motorsports website and he felt that it would replace what I needed and eliminate the problem for the future. I know it's expensive, but I plan to continue driving the truck and think this will save money in the long run. Thoughts?

 

I have a couple of thoughts on this. One is that the ball joint lasted 11 years and it's the rubber bushing that usually causes a wobble issue anyway. so I wouldn't leap to diss the stock solution. The second is that I use rod ends all the time on my race cars. I would expect to be replacing the rod ends on that WC Motorsports bar on an annual basis, if you drive it much and if you drive it in winter at all. Rod ends just suck in a snowy salty road condition as fas as long life is concerned. I had a small wobble under braking, and a new stock bar was easy to install, I re-used the existing ball joint and the only reason I changed it was the rubber bushing was getting old.

 

Great point on the 11 years. However, the big tires have only been for the last 4 or so. As for snow, we don't really get much, don't drive in it when we do, and they spray the potato juice stuff rather than salt here anyway. Does that change your thoughts any?

 

Just that I don`t particularly like rod ends in street suspension, it`s just my opinion. Rod ends all look about exactly the same but they come in dozens of ratings, specifications, teflon lines, mil-spec, aircraft spec, stainless steel, high carbon steel, you name it. The load on these is pretty high, but is in tension and compression, not in bending. You can get boots for them to protect the *****, or make them out of bicycle inner tubes. Make sure to get the torque right on the frame mount side, it has to be 400 ft lbs (actually 403 or some number like that, translated from the metric...). An air impact wrench won`t get it reliably, you need to find a torque wrench. I have a 700 ft lb torque wrench for the wheel nuts on my bus. You can torque that bolt with the wheels on the ground, just steer the drivers side tire out and have a very short extension and you can get the socket on the nut with the torque wrench going in past the front of the tire.

Brian

 

I have to admit that in totally over my head in terms of knowledge here. Looking over old texts with the man who did my 4wd conversion 47k mikes ago, we ended up replacing the entire tie rod due to wreck damage on the donor truck. Apparently, this has worn out over that time. The tires are just too heavy for what I'm doing with them. Unfortunately, I've replaced those tires with even BIGGER tires (wheel and tire 162 lbs each) and they have another 40-50k miles before they will be replaced with much lighter one. I figure I can do this expensive now or cheaper again at the next tire change. Question is, will this really fix it now AND keep it fixed later?

 

I had the Ready-Lift version and I think it is the same price as WC. Icon also has one maybe cheaper and BD Diesel has one too that is about half price as the others. Shop around. Personally I would not waste my money on it but would rather replace the worn out ends which I think Ford has a separate part number for now.

 

So, are you saying that it didn't work for you, or that it'd be so much cheaper to do the ends that they could be replaced multiple times and still cost less?

 

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It did work because the stock bar was worn out but it wasn't the end all solution to the wobble. I traded the truck in and the new owner was a Ford tech. I found out later that the wheels were bad (stock 20's) so all he did was get aftermarket wheels and the steering was perfect.

 

Well that looks like a whole different solution, altogether.

 

Yep, or put leaf springs on it and cut the axle brackets off.

 

Well that ain't happening. So, the bottom line seems to be that any of these options will fix it, as long as the problem doesn't turn out to really be something else like a bad wheel. The reason I don't like going back with the stock set up is that it's likely to happen again. What I need to know is whether these other solutions will really prevent this from recurring.