Hey, anybody out there had any ball joint problems with your Superduty? I have an 01 4wd with 47k on it and the upper ball joint on the left side is giving up. I do a little off roading but nothing too crazy. Bottom line is I assume I should replace upper and lower on both sides rather than just replace the one with obvious problems. Any advice is appreciated.

MJC

 

Fairly common problem, though usually you get a few more miles out of them.

Due to your relatively low miles, I'd just do the one bad side, upper and lower. It's a fairly expensive and time consuming fix, so for my money, I'd wait to see some problems on the good side before I went ahead.

Waxy

 

I agree with Waxy. Inspect both sides thoroughly, then replace as needed. There's a few addresses here on it if you do a search.

 

Thanks guys. The upper one on the left side definitely has issues. I'm going to look closely at the right side and decide what to do. It's only money, right?

MJC

 

I'd recommend replacing them with greasable ball joints. I know my factory ball joints didn't have grease fittings.

 

MClark77
I am going through this same problem right now (01 4wd F350 62k miles)
All four ball joints toast and drivers side hub. I changed the hub tonight. I have got all the ball joints and the hub but I have not received the ball joint press yet and I wanted to get the truck back on the road. I will do the ball joints and the pass side hub this weekend. I am changing both hubs as I believe if one fails then the other is not far behind. The next weekend I will do drivers side ball joints.
I think you should change both on that one side as you have it apart already. The hub was no sweat. 1 1/2 hours at best.
Anyone who replaces A hub, make sure you you get new studs, and nuts, as getting the old studs out was A pain. If I had gotten new studs I would have been done in an hour.
I posted A thread titled "ball joints and hub" and someone replyed with step by step on changing the ball joints. Very helpful article. I went and bought a repair manual and the reply that was posted was better than the book.
Good luck with the project and I hope you only need to do one side.

 

12738 miles ford just did right side upper and lower....... they ran dry!!!

 

my drivers side is shot at 43kmi

 

If your doing it yourself I would replace all four with greaseable ones. If the left side went its only a matter of time before the right side goes. Especially if you take it off-road. And you will get them all done in one shot. Thats just my opinion.

 

Could you add grease zirts to the OEM parts and possibly increase life expectancy?

 

My ball joints were just replaced by ford at 19,000 The driver side tire was tilted in and my tire was cupping from it.

 

I added grease fittings to mine,you have to pull the axles to do the uppers. use a small magnet from a magnetic drain plug to get the small metal particles out.

 

Metal particles aren't gonna bother a ball joint!! Relace all four when they start to go. Use moog joints they are heavy duty compared to ford and are lifetime units...

 

Ugh, I think I'm in the same boat! Just started today, LOUD popping & creaking coming from left front wheel area. Only happens when turning or breaking. I did a LOT of deep water crossings this last weekend with all the rain we had, I think I finally did my ball joints & bearings in for good!

 

I just had mine replaced yesterday at 12K. I took it in just before I rolled 12K to have an alignment check under warranty. The tech took it on a test drive and said it was possibly binding, hard to steer and not recentering as it should. All that was news to me. But, at no cost, they replaced all 4 ball joints the same day and adjusted the steering mesh. They refered to TSB 01-3-2 for the problem. At least that's what it says on my invoice. Even though I didn't recognize the problem before, it does steer much easier now. So I guess it is a common problem.