Lariat stepside, 5.4L with 150k miles. Loud popping noise, almost a clunk, when making a slow sharp turn. Put it on jackstands and did the normal tire grab and shake and found no issues there. Tie rods, ball joints and sway bar links all seem tight. Looked for signs of unusual rubber to metal and metal to metal wear and found nothing. The only thing I did see was the rubber boots on the upper control arm ball joints were split. Any ideas on what I have checked or if I am missing something? Thanks in advance!

 

I normally put a floor jack under the A frame and lift up so the truck is setting approx. in the running position. With the tire 2 inches off the ground, take a 2 x 4 about 3 ft long and stick 4 inches under the tire. Pry up and down and have someone watch for movement in the lower and upper ball joints. Shaking and grabbing will find worn out wheel bearings, but might not be enough to catch ball joints. If you have 150K miles and have original ball joints, that would be a place to look.

 

Thanks Steve, that will give me a reason to go to The Depot today.

 

could also be your front bearings, sounds more towards that for the sound clunking when you turn, usually you can check that by removing the wheel, caliper and braket then just turning the hub should hear the same sound just not as loud and maybe some resitance. On bad cases you will see rust coming out of the area that there bearings are in between. If it is the hub i would replace ASAP, hub could come off completely and badd juju on the road. Seen it happen many times but mostly when someone has hit a curb or pothole at higher speeds.

 

Thanks for the reply. I am not getting any wheel movement when I grab the tire at the 12 and 6 position. Could the bearings still be bad enough to cause the popping noise?

 

Bet its the balljoints.

 

Okay, just jacked it up under the a-frame until the tire was a couple of inches off the ground and slid a 2x4 under the tire. Pried up on the tire and saw slight movement of knuckle before a-frame moved. From what I have read, ANY movement indicates a bad ball joint, right? Checked the other side and it moved about the same. Looked back into maintenance on this truck and saw that both upper control arms and both lowers along with stabilizer links were changed in 2011. I guess that the mechanic might have re-used the lower ball joints or they just failed prematurely.

 

There should be no movement in the ball joint. Sometimes I put my finger on the two sides of the ball stem / case while jacking it up.. You can feel 1/16 of inch, that's significant... 1/8 inch is BAD. I use only MOOG for the lower ball joints. Recently I bought MOOG upper control arms with ball joints. Very heavy compared to factory, but I did note the uppers are now made in china......... they do have grease zerks.. do yours ?

 

Yes, on the upper control arm but the boot is split.

 

The lowers should have grease zerks. They take the major load. If they were MOOG they would have zerks... If not, they are original or chineese.