Hi guys I have a baffed out ball joint on my 03 I knoticed my tire was wearing funny on the front drivers side of my 450. Jack the truck up and sure enough its worn out only the bottom one the passenger side is fine

I'am going to replace all 4 not going to chance it so which is the better option go with OEM-TRW-MOOG ?

Greaseable or Sealed ?

I grease my truck monthly so there is no worries about them failing because of road grime.

Its a pain in the butt now I need to leave the truck at the local mechanic shop and rent a car to get to work. I have no time to change them myself. The same shop did a F-550 last month but that truck was a 2001 and it still had the factory ball joints

My truck only has about 40,000 miles on it and the ball joint is gone already ?

I guess thats what that creaking sound I have been hearing is the ball joint is dry and worn out. I haven't owned a truck with ball joints in 12 years all my other trucks have had king pins.

Oh by the way the F-450s use the same size ball joint upper and lower as the F-250 and 350.

 

the stock ones dont seem to last...........oem are sealed i would get moog...make sure they have 90 deg fittings. i have done 2 sets.....the second guy got cheap autozone specials and they had straight fitting not much good those were gonna do.

 

I will see what the local parts store can get me. I won't be going oem if they only last couple years.

With the F-450 weighing 9300lbs empty I want the good balljoints there is lots of stress on them when I drive the truck like a sports car

 

My F350 dually ball joints failed early also. I put MOOG ones in based on their good reputation. Time will tell how good they are.

I can tell you that they come with 90 degree grease zerks, but I still can't leave them in or they hit the front U-joint. I might try and find some slimmer 90 degree zerks because it's a pain to remove the plug and install a zerk to grease the ball joint. But I'd rather do that than replace ball joints every 50k miles.

 

Mine also wore out @ 20k. But I do have a lift and oversize tires so I am sure that is why mine wore out that much sooner. Mine were replaced under warranty so I have OEM but I do recall reading a thread on here about a guy who had alot of miles on his truck and had ran the moog greasable versus the OEM with no significant increase in mileage between the two. Just boils down to a bad design and something we have to replace a little sooner than we would like. I guess the greasable would give you peace of mind that you are maintaining them.

 

Go with Moog greaseable joints. Napa has them pretty reasonably priced.

 

I've heard that the recent Moog units are too stiff and cause the steering to not self-center for a while. My front end shop has gone back to the sealed OEM units.

 

Haven't heard that. I'm using MOOG myself and haven't had any problems. Personally, I'd rather a ball joint be a little tight than loose.

 

I don't have many choices when it comes to what parts I want because the local parts store only carries certain manufacturers. Napa which is a hour drive away I have delt with a few times. The problem with Napa is they always have troubles finding parts for a F-450 its not listed in their computer. The Ford dealer is also a hour away and I only deal with them for Ford only items and fuel and oil filters.

When I looked up the part numbers it seems like the same ball joint is used on other vehicals like Dodge.

The parts store is closed today being a holiday so I will have to stop in tommorow morn before I go to work and order the parts. They may have them instock. I do want the better ones I don't want to be replacing the ball joints again because they were cheap ones.

I also have to replace the steer tires too those rotten OEM 19.5 Generals are crap tires. The one has wore the inside rib because the worn ball joing but the tread is splitting and cracking. A local guy that has 2 F-450s he uses to haul food blew a tire it was a General tire and it did a nice job on the front fender.

 

More likely than not, that was caused by a technician improperly torquing things down. I have used moog for years with no issues other than learning the hard way myself that there is actually a torque spec other than turn till your purple for the joints.

 

I called the Napa around here and they don't carry Moog's.
Would Duralast be as good?

 

I have a 97 F250 HD 4X4 w/30K and I just replaced all ball joints with Moogs. As pfb stated: I can't get the truck to self center and I did install them per Fords service manual and torqued everything to specs. The front end shop that I took it to for an alignment said they had been having problems with Moogs being too tight and have had to replace some. He said Moog has been buying up other companies and probably putting the cheaper ball joints in Moog boxes and making more profit.

 

That was the case with mine, but it only took about 500 miles before it settled down. When I took it to have it aligned the alignment shop (the garage that installed them didn't have an alignment rack) said they stopped installing Moogs because of customer complaints.

I doubt they were improperly installed, although it is always possible. The mechanic owns a SD himself and does a ton of these jobs.

 

I had Moogs installed on the right sides. The Joint was WAY TOO STIFF The truck was very difficult to drive at highway speeds. The steering wheel would not center. You had to really be careful. I complained and replaced them with aonther set of Moogs and no better. The shop even said how stiff they were. I made the call to put the OEM back in.

 

Well I'am not going to buy Moog balljoints if people are having problems with them. I only want to do the job once I will see if I can get TRW ball joints.

I might have to get OEM ball joints if it comes to it.