91 upper ball joints

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Jul 4, 2008 | 09:33 PM

1977f250

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91 upper ball joints

I was looking at the upper ball joints on my 91 Explorer today, and they are held in place with the bolt through style. Anyone have any idea what the factory bolt size is? Looks like a 1/2" 12 point, but the only 12 point socket I had is a 1/2" drive and was to thick walled to go in. Thanks for any help.

Jul 5, 2008 | 09:18 AM

steve(ill)

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i dont know, but my 89 F250 had all metric bolts. I would assume you are looking for 13 or 15 mm.

Jul 12, 2008 | 03:52 AM

eallanboggs

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The size of the bolt isn't all that important compared to your ability to get the bolt out once the nut is removed. It's a really stupid design. The bolt heads hit the mounting point for the other bolts as you try to remvoe them. The right bolt hits the left one and the left bolt hits the right one when they are nearly fully removed, but they won't come all the way out. I tried cutting 1/2" off of the end of each bolt to shorten them, but it wasn't much help. Then when you do get the bolt out most of the way you find that Ford placed the brake lines right in between the two upper control arm bolt mounting towers which makes getting the bolts out even harder. Good luck. You'll need it on the drivers side.