Yes, anyone with normal wrench spinning abilities can accomplish the task. You need a ball joint press that you can rent from the auto parts store and a BFH.

 

Depends if you live in an area with a lot of salt and corrosion or not.

 

Don't be a grumpy gus

If it's too hard, or you simply don't want to press the old joints out and the new in, you can take the knuckle in to any shop with a press. They can remove and install the new ones for you for cheap. Even better if you have a friend with a press.

 

Not being grumpy, just speaking from experience. Salt plus ball joints = no fun. But looking back at the thread and seeing he's from CA, I'd say go for it.

 

A grease fitting doesn't magically make a quality part and I do not think anyone is saying it does. The OE ungreasable ball joints often need replacing entirely too early as is my experience and others as well. If you have a "quality part" why would you not want to be able to grease them so they last longer? The SDs are heavy and harder on ball joints than a 1/2 ton truck, all the more reason to make them greasable to extend their life.

 

That may very well be true in your case but when effort is required to return to center like mine than that it is NOT correct. The Moog ball joints in my opinion were not design and/or constructed correctly. A properly designed ball joint should allow the steering to return to center with little to no effort.

 

I've always used Moog.

 

I used to... But if they have started to outsource, I'm done.

 

I'm gonna throw my 2 cents in here, I own a repair shop in NJ and do a lot of ford parts sales. Motorcraft front end parts are not oem, Ford are. Many Motorcraft parts are the original used, but not front end parts. I have tried them in the past and they look exactly like repacked Moog parts which I believe they are, although I have no proof.

I have seen many vehicles come into my shop with stiff joints that are new installed by other shops, I suspect that this may be due to installation error. When pressing the joints into the spindle, if the correct tools are not used and the correct part of the joint is not pressed, ball joint damage may occur. I have installed Moog's in my own 04 about 2 years ago including lots of snow plowing, so far so good. I would certainly have considered spicer if I had found that as option as I am not a big Moog fan. Generally I am all for oem, but in this case they simply do not hold up well.

 

I figured I would reply to own post about my squeaking ball joints and what I did to make them last longer.

About a month after this quoted post I had determined the lower ball joints were what was making the godawful squeaking noise when turning. I decided to drill and tap the lower ball joints for grease fittings. I figured if it doesn't work at the very worst I will be replacing the ball joints anyway. I could not get to the upper ball joints to put in a grease fitting without tearing everything apart so I left them alone.

So I drilled and tapped each lower ball joint 1/4-28 for a grease fitting. Then put a straw on a can of brake cleaner, stuck the straw into the drilled/tapped hole and flushed it with brake cleaner. Some rusty brake cleaner and a few tiny metal shavings came out. I let the brake cleaner dry for about 30 minutes and then installed the grease fittings. I pumped the ball joints full of grease. I gave them a little grease every oil change after that. The grease stopped the squeaking.

This winter my ball joints finally developed slop and needed replaced. So a couple months ago I replaced them.

So drilling and tapping the lower ball joints and greasing them got me almost 3 more years of additional squeak free service. If they came with grease fittings from factory they probably would have lasted even longer.