yes, you should have been able to move the spindle back and forth with little effort, your ball joints are siezed up. time to replace them. if its 4 wheel drive i would also check the outer u-joints on the front axle. if you take it that far apart to replaced the ball joints it worth the extra time and money to replace those outer u-joints. as far as the caliper goes, take it off push the piston in to make sure its not siezed up, check the sliders(clean and relubricate them) also clean and lubricate the part of the spindle that the ends of the brake pads mount on. the pads have to be able to move a little to be able to back away from the rotor when the brakes are released.
p.s. if your good with a cuting torch, or know someone who is. just cut the nuts off the old ball joints(careful not to heat up the spindle and careful not to cut the camber adjustment cams) then just tap them out to remove the spindle assembly (with the balljoints still in it) from the front axle. then you can take the spindle assembly to a bench and remove the ball joints from it, and install the new ball joints.
if you plan on keeping the truck for awhile spend the extra to get ball joints and u-joints with grease fittings on them. good luck.

 

What are the chances that the other side it toast too? Man I hope this doesn't end up costing too much more money. Also, since I don't have access to a good cutting torch, how do I go about removing the ball joints- can I just use a the pickle fork I bought for the tie rod ends?

 

I priced the parts today- about $70 from Schucks, some brand I hadn't heard of and can't remember. The ball joints are greasable though. I'm not sure how much longer I'll have this truck, so I don't know if spending the exra $10-15 at Napa would be worth it. Also, I'm still not sure if the right side is bad. I'm hoping not, but with my luck it is. Ahhhh... such is life

 

pickle fork may work, as far as the torch goes that was just for removing the nuts from the old ball joints( some times when trying to remove the nut from a ball joint the whole ball stud turns ). if you don't have access to a torch i would suggest spraying the nuts with pb blaster a couple times a day in advance to doing the job. you might even be able to break the nuts off with a good chisle. as far as the other side goes, this is what happened to me. left side was siezed, right side lower ball joint was starting to show some looseness. figured i had time to save some money(like a couple of months) and i wasn't looking forward to doing the job. thats about all the time i had. 2 months, when i pulled everything apart the right side lower ball joint fell apart. both outer u-joints on the front axle were siezed and probably would have broke after the first couple of times of using the four wheel drive. not trying to scare you into doing all this work, just been there before. you may not have to do it all if you don't plan on keeping the truck long. The whole thing took me about 4 hours and i did it in a garage that i work at part time i had all the tools available to me to do the work. might have been able to do it in a little less time, but i like to take my time a do everything right the first time. good luck, a get some help to do it if you do it yourself, sometimes it gets a little frustrating and it helps to have someone to talk to during the job(long as theres not to many people hanging around, lol). take your time.

 

jarrod316- that is so weird- I have the EXACT same thing right now with my front end- left side seized up, right lower showing a little wear. Creepy The axle u-joints don't look bad, but I know if I got in there and didn't do it I'd be doing it again this winter. My problem now is finding the time to do it. I'm not sure how much longer I'll have the truck is another problem. I'm looking for a newer x-cab, but haven't found the right one yet. Thanks for the tips!

 

I didn't read through all your replies, but most of them seem to be leaning towards the steering box. My two cents worth is you have afrozon U joint in your front axle. One or both, you can try greasing them. It is more then likely time to replace them. Good luck.

 

Stating the obvious here but it seems possible that frozen u-joints would cause steering box to go bad.