I have noticed a tire wear patten that is on the inside of the front tires. i also had removed the swaybar so i can replace my bushings. however i still have a clunk from the floor board. do y9ou guys think its the ball joints? How do you tell if the ball joints are bad?

 

Sounds like multiple problems to me. The clunk with the swaybar removed probably does mean a balljoint is bad, but the tire wear sounds like a toe adjustment is neccessary or the tie rod ends are bad too.

A good $0.02 worth of opinion anyways.

 

oh man this cant be good. how can i tell if either is bad? can i just jack it up and shack a few things around?

 

Possibly, but if the ball joints move with just hand pressure they are completely shot.

You can jack it up and pry up on the tire with a seat rod to see if there is any play in the ball joints. The tie rod ends, if bad, will have some play in them just pushing the tires left to right by hand. Some folks try to compress the rod ends with a large pair of channel-locks looking for play...never tried that one myself.

 

You know i didnt have this problem until i took the lift kit off and had the truck aligned. i wonder if its just a shoddy alignment?

 

Could be. I wasn't aware there was a lift kit involved, might want to expand your search for the "clunk" to the springs/hangers, u-bolt plates and the shock mounts as well.

 

well belive it or not i called the dealer down at the coast that did the alignment. and i told them of the tires wearing out pretty bad etc etc. they are going to send a refund check for the alignment! i cant belive ford is going to do that!

some past history on the truck

6 inch superlift suspension kit
35 x12.50 bfg's
this was the running gear that was on the truck but i had to get rid of it. the truck was useless. it had a hard time pulling trailers and the goosenck i couldnt even pull. not to mention not a shop in town could align it nor balance the big tires right.

 

could be hubs or loose u=bolts also

 

What are ball joints, tie rods and bushings?

Please ignore if you find this question too stupid to be answered.

 

Found the answer:
http://www.carcare.org/Steering_Susp...sway_bar.shtml

 

6 inch superlift suspension kit
35 x12.50 bfg's
the truck was useless.


Hey, hey, hey,......................I disagree.....................lol

 

sure the truck looked great but it was hard on it to pull my trailers and i could find a drop hitch low enough, gooseneck just sitting aorund not getting any use. killed the mileage and maintance was unheard of because of it.

 

IMO - When checking front suspension items, remember that it needs to be "unloaded" to really see if you have play somewhere. So you pretty much have to remove the front springs.

 

But, only if you have a late-model truck with front coil springs. If you have leaf springs you only need to jack the tires off the ground with the jack under the axel. There won't be any pre-load on the front suspension if you have leaf springs, only with a coil-spring and "A" arms.

Pop

 

Sorry about that, Springer is right. Shake away. I'm too used to coil springs.