Just finished doing 4 ball joints on my 04 F350. Truck had 102K but they were definite due. Plus its a new England vehicle and that goes without saying. This was by far one of the most difficult and challenging jobs I have done in a long time...and I was a heavy equipment mechanic for two years(now an engineer). One hub took over 3 hours to come off(rust). It seemed like every nut and bolt fought me the whole time. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning everything up and gave everything a nice coat of chassis paint. One side took about 12 hours and the other about 8. I used Moog ball joints and got all the parts/seals off Amazon Prime including the OTC seal tool(HIGHLY recommend) Truck rides way better now and almost all steering wheel play is gone. Glad I did it myself I'm sure it would of been one hefty shop bill. If your thinking of doing this task, make sure you got lots of PB blaster and some good quality air tools I think doing this without air tools would be damn near impossible and torturous.

Some shots of the finished product:

 

Yes. You saved ton of money. I did the same thing to my truck, but I totaled it about 40 miles later. I never got the chance to appreciate my hard work. My replacement truck has 160K, and it does not need new ball joints yet. When it does, I will be ready for it as I now have the know how.

 

I changed mine a few months ago and took all weekend to do. Pain in my back!! Torqueing those darn nuts and bolts while trying to squeeze in a fender well was fun!!


Truck does drive and steer like a new one though. Doing it myself I know I saved at least $800-1000 by the quote I got. Plus I know it was done right, not shade tree!

 

This is on my to do list in a month or two. When you mentioned OTC seal tool, was it this one?

 

Nope...it was this one:


I could not imagine trying to install the axel seal without it. I've seen several write ups where guys have made tools using plumbing supplies just to save a couple bucks...but this tool was designed specifically for this job. I mean its 64$ you cant really go wrong...

 

Are you keeping or have you sold the OTC 6695 tool? I need to rent one or buy one for a fair price?

 

It's really easy to make your own seal driver from plumbing supplies. Search some old threads. My homemade one was very easy to use. I just did this to my '03 less than two weeks ago as well as the axle u joints all seals and all tie rods, as well as stabilizer links and bushings. 4th time I've done this myself to various trucks '92, '95, '99, and now my '03.

Heated shop, all the tooling, a little experience, and a helping hand and it was a do it all in a day and I buttoned up the details myself the next day kind of job.

 

Before you buy, look in the SuperDuty Tech Folder under the 4x4 Ball Joint instruction section and you'll find the list of plumbing parts that I also used to create my seal install tool (worked great!):

"1-12-2006, 01:33 AM
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Miescha's homemade seal driver pic
Thanks to all for the ball joint replacement instructions, especially Racerguy for the write up and Miescha for the seal driver idea. After he described the driver, I knew exactly what he was talking about. Went to Lowes and purchased these parts:

1. 1 1/4" x 8" galvanized pipe
2. 1 1/4" flange
3. 1 1/4" cap

It was very easy and worked like a charm! Here is a pic.

Click the image to open in full size.
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Last edited by hink10; 01-12-2006 at 02:01 AM."


Good luck and enjoy the project!

 

I would rather play it safe and just use the OTC 6695 tool for depth accuracy and prevention of a mishap. I know it is a heckuvah lot cheaper to build one but I don't want to be grinding down on the flange to the proper diameter in hopes that I got it right. My grinder is 45 minute drive away from me at the moment anyways.
I bought a set of SKF BR930420 wheel hubs off of Amazon for $176.54 each and SKF 28600 and National 710413 seals from Rock Auto and XRF ball joints for $105.30 with free shipping both sides with free shipping from WWW.MIBEARINGS.COM

 

Fire wrench, Air hammer BFH and PB Blaster are all great friends of mine!

 

Did the frontend on my 04 F-450 last year, now I'm changing it over to a 07 coil spring frontend so we'll be doing a full rebuild on it while it's out.

 

Forget what I said above. I got lucky and found a guy in my neighborhood with the same year of truck as mine that had the OTC 6695 tool when he did his seals. He lent it to me free of charge but I did give him $35 as a deposit. I can't afford all the expensive quality parts that he blinged-out his truck with.

 

Gives ya a good feeling once that nasty job is over and done with. I went through that about a month ago or so, on my 99 f250 SD 4x4.. The worst part of the job was getting the "auto locking" hubs off. They were rusted & corroded to the outer splines in the hub. PB Blaster hammer & chisels etc. finally got them off. I put Mile Marker manual hubs on as replacements instead.

I used Moog heavy duty parts. Ball joints, and all tie rod parts. Definitely not a job for the faint of heart. A shop that specializes in that kind of job had an estimate of $1,900. So I decided to tackle it myself. Glad I did. The ball joint replacement, while not an easy job, was the most straight forward part of the whole mess. I got to know my Super Duty up close and personal, and swap a little blood & oil. Truck drives great now!


Gregg,

 

Sounds like my experience. I was replacing the passenger side ball joints and never could get the hub off. The truck was in an accident before I bought it and bent the studs that connect the knuckle and hub. I spent 3 days banging on that knuckle and never got it off. It ended up being towed and having the studs torched off...

 

I replaced all 4 ball joints and all tie rods on my F550 4X4 flatbed Tow truck. I Thank GOD i live in Arizona and NOT in NJ anymore. Ya gotta Love Rust Free stuff here. I got my ball joints and tie rod end from ProForge (Amazon has them) and they have a One Million mile Guarantee. The parts are made out of Chromoly. lower ball joints were around $52 uppers around $34. that's what Auto Zone wanted for their crap. the small tie rods were around $35 and the long one on pass side $95.I have the Dana 60 in the front so it's the same as the F350.