balljoints
New User
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 6
Likes: 0
From: Central Florida
I just did the ones on my wife's '97 4-door, 2wd this past weekend.
If you are pretty handy, it will take you about 4 hours to do the job (all 4 ball joints). You will have to rent a ball joint press for the lower ones (might as well change them while you are at it since they will go bad and can't be greased anyways).
Raise the side of the vehicle and place one jackstand below the frame and another under the lower control arm (for safety reasons of course).
Remove the tire, the brake caliper and the pads from the wheel (this keeps the brake line from being stretched as you work on the spindle).
If you only are going to remove the upper ball joints, undo the pinch bolt on the spindle and push the upper arm up.
On the passenger side just undo the 2 nuts on the arm and remove the old control arm and replace with the new.
On the driver's side be ready to spend some time. The whole arm has to come out and the 13/16" bolts are very difficult to remove because of the brake lines and the fuel line. The rear one is by far the hardest to do, but not impossible. Just have patience and take your time.
After the job is done, take it to a place and have the front end aligned.
I strongly recommend that you do the lower ball joints as well, because once you do this once, you will not want to mess witht he front end of the truck ever again.
Good luck.
If you are pretty handy, it will take you about 4 hours to do the job (all 4 ball joints). You will have to rent a ball joint press for the lower ones (might as well change them while you are at it since they will go bad and can't be greased anyways).
Raise the side of the vehicle and place one jackstand below the frame and another under the lower control arm (for safety reasons of course).
Remove the tire, the brake caliper and the pads from the wheel (this keeps the brake line from being stretched as you work on the spindle).
If you only are going to remove the upper ball joints, undo the pinch bolt on the spindle and push the upper arm up.
On the passenger side just undo the 2 nuts on the arm and remove the old control arm and replace with the new.
On the driver's side be ready to spend some time. The whole arm has to come out and the 13/16" bolts are very difficult to remove because of the brake lines and the fuel line. The rear one is by far the hardest to do, but not impossible. Just have patience and take your time.
After the job is done, take it to a place and have the front end aligned.
I strongly recommend that you do the lower ball joints as well, because once you do this once, you will not want to mess witht he front end of the truck ever again.
Good luck.
Senior User
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 478
Likes: 0
From: ut
There are all kinds of posts in here for front end noise. Do a search and read up on all the possibilities...there are several besides ball joints. You could do a check of the ball joints themselves to see if they're bad. No use changing them if they check good. Jack up the vehicle with the jack under the lower control arm. Have someone grab the wheel and wiggle firmly up and down. Look to see if there's any movement around the ball joint dust boot. I like to use some sort of pry-bar under the tire to try to move it up and down..seems to me I can get more force that way.
