Purchased my truck about 3 weeks ago, and I took it to a Mech to have a new vehicle inspection done. He said the truck looked great except for a few things, the front brakes, the rear brakes and the lower left ball joint.

(1) Front brakes. I did this job last weekend and noted that the pads that he said should be replaced had about 40% of the life left on them. I bled them and put on new pads anyway. The old ones looked OLD but otherwise seemed ok..Calipers were dirty but fine.

(2) Rear Brakes. I have not even inspected them myself yet, the mechanic said that they had life on them but recommended changing them because he saw that one was "riveted"and the other was not. He also said he has never seen that before and suggested they be changed for safety sake.

(3) Lower left ball joint. I have not checked this yet, because I am trying to gain info on exactly what to look for and how to repair any problems.

I have several questions. For one, did the front brakes age have anything to do with his recommendation. My Dad (the know-how) said he thought the guy was REACHING to find something wrong and based on that he said the rear brakes are probably fine and that the lower left ball joint is probably ok too. I looked through the owners Maintenence schedule and it said that the ball joints should be lubed every 15,000. However nowhere else can i find this info...and the Haynes manual has no procedure listed for lubing them. I suspect that my dad is right and that the rear brakes and ball joint are OK. How can I be sure and does anybody know if or how they should be lubed? And is it a problem to have ONE riveted shoe and one Unriveted? Not sure why it is setup that way. I got the truck with 41,000 on it and the only other thing I have done so far is change the fuel filter...it was original and the air filter which WAS dirty. The good news is the previous owner did perform regular oil changes and maintained the coolant. But not much else, he half assed my baby and I am trying to make sure that I dont do the same. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks FTE.

Hulk

 

Replace the rear brake shoes. If one side is riveted and the other is not then the guy did not replace both side at the same time and this is a big no no when it comes to brake repair. ALWAYS replace the brakes in pairs.

On the 99 + 2wd rangers there is no way to grease the balljoints. you replace them when they go bad. Balljoints going bad on the 99+ rangers is very common.