I had my truck aligned after I installed the leveling kit. The guy who did the alignment said the ball joints are starting to go. Now the alignment is off so I jacked up the front end to check things out. The drivers front has significant movement from the lower ball joint. The pass side has no movement in the ball joint area but the stub axle moves where it enters the axle housing. Why is that? Is it the seal that has gone bad? I placed an order for the parts I think I'll need.

All of these X2
Upper and lower ball joints
Axle seal
Dust seal
Locking hub orings (black and yellow ones)
Needle bearings, just in case

Please advise.

 

If you had all of those issues the guy should not have even done the alignment other than to verify what was wrong. With all of that movement it would be pointless.

 

The alignment was about a year and a half ago. I did not have these issues then. He said just very slight movement in the ball joint.

 

If there is movement and its not the ball joints then its the bearing hub.

 

If the needle bearings have been run dry then you might need outer stub shafts as well. While you're in there check condition of your axle shaft u joints, odds are they'll be pretty tight. My inner axle shaft oil seals were leaking when I did mine those little puppies are pricey!

 

So what would cause movement on the inner part of the axle shaft? I don't know much about these kind of things, but i'm not afraid to try. I need to make sure I have all parts needed on hand to do this job next Saturday.

 

When I did my ball joints I ordered the things you listed but realized when I got to the passenger side it was missing the thrust bearing Front Hub Vacuum Thrust Washer - 1999-2004 Ford 7.3 Diesel and one of the three washers on the end of the shaft near the snap ring Front Hub Thrust Washers - 1999-2004 Ford 7.3 Diesel Axle. So I had to order those and do it all again on that side. I also purchased a wheel bearing hub just in case.

 

All my parts have arrived. I went ahead and bought new hubs just in case. One of the new hubs needle bearing doesn't spin. Should I be concerned?

 

So my right front hub bearing was toast! I went ahead and replaced both hubs, ball joints and seals. I had the u joints on hand but could see nothing wrong with the old ones, so I returned them. I also serviced the auto lock hubs. I did the whole job in about 8 hrs. That includes time spent jerking around with the ball joint press I rented from Napa. That thing was a p.o.s. If anyone reading this is going to do this job soon I recomend researching different options for the press. One with more versatility for the bigger parts on a superduty.