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Sorry to hear your woes, but that's not too bad of a price for a control arm. There's quite a few other cars out there where the mfgr welds in the ball joint and when it's worn out -you guessed it, you have to replace the whole control arm.
I hear the early Audi TT's wear them out every 30K miles, and they're not $130 ea!
I have a 98 with coil spring/A-arm and just replaced my ball joints without buying the A-arms !
They had snap rings so they planned for them to come out.
Motocraft sells them but Ford doesn't ?? Go figure..
I went with Motocraft because my local Motocraft parts dist had a better price than Moog at the parts store. The were $40 something, I got all (2 upper & 2 lower for aprox $150)
I will tell you that they were hard to press out, real tight. I had to put a ball joint press on them (had to improvise some adapters) then I had to hammer it down with an impact then hit the outer edge of the A-arm with a torch for about 10 secs and they came out with a bang.
If you don't have or can't get a loaner press I think you could remove the A-arm and take it to someone with a regular press.
Motocraft sells them but Ford doesn't ?? Go figure..
Ford has started moving alot of their service parts (mainly wear and regular maintenance items) under the Motorcraft name. I recently bought a set of axle seals for a 7.5" rear end and they were in a Motorcraft box instead of a Ford one as they had been previously.
When I did mine I talked with some mechanics and parts man at a Ford dealer, the parts catalog shows no ball joints and the service book does no show how to replace them and that tells me Ford doesn't want you to replace them.
I just find it odd that Ford seems to be telling all not to replace the joints and to buy the arm but Motocraft sells the joints.
Here's a pic of the two different upper arms. The one on the left is off my '98 Ranger 2.5L 2WD coil springs. The right one is a Moog replacement for the 2WD Ranger/Explorer with torsion bars. Notice how much longer the torsion bar upper arm is. Also, check out how cheesy the factory balljoint on the left looks compared to the one on the right. Your replacement balljoints should look more like the right one.
I have a 98 with coil spring/A-arm and just replaced my ball joints without buying the A-arms !
They had snap rings so they planned for them to come out.
Motocraft sells them but Ford doesn't ?? Go figure..
I went with Motocraft because my local Motocraft parts dist had a better price than Moog at the parts store. The were $40 something, I got all (2 upper & 2 lower for aprox $150)
Thanks for the feedback. Do you have the Motorcraft part numbers?
Last edited by Rockledge; Nov 20, 2005 at 02:11 PM.
Upper is MCS104261 ($43) - Lower is MCS104222 ($36)
As usual the one that always wears out is more....
Funny thing, I bought another 98 for my wife yesterday.
I just gave it a check out today, it needs the right upper ball joint.
Soon I will be able to do these in pit stop time !