I had to replace the lower ball joints on my 2000 EB 4x4 after verifying a diagnosis by our local tire dealer who saw the excessive play in the joints while rotating my tires. I read a bunch of the threads on this forum on how folks changes ball joints, including the tech article on the F-150. Here are some notes on my experience, some that may help prevent mistakes if you choose to tackle the job:

- I rented the ball joint press kit and a separate axle socket kit (for the 36 mm axle nut removal) from Autozone, you put a deposit down and return it no charge and it was a pretty complete kit. I also bought the ball joints and ended up buying the two outer tie rod ends as well from them for replacement.

- You need to use an 18mm socket or wrench to remove the brake caliper.

- My rotors were rusted on and took about 30 min each to remove them. I took the time to clean and remove rust from them and the hub and coated the mating surfaces with antisieze prior to installation.

- Use brake dust cleaner on the entire assembly to remove grease and dirt if you get the chance.

- Use the correct size of allen wrench to remove the ABS sensor if you have that installed on the truck.

- I removed the tie rod, upper ball joint, and lower ball joint connections in that order. Use a separate bottle jack to raise and lower the control arm to help you drop the assembly down out of the upper ball joint. Use pitman puller and a large hammer to strike the sides of the ball joints to break them loose, don't use a pickle fork.

- The hub assembly does in fact drop down and pulls away from the cv axle, just be prepared to catch the axle and be able to set it aside on the stabilizer bar mounting post. You should clean up the axle seal and recoat the rubber parts with dielectric grease or silicon grease, and you should regrease the axle spline and receiver as well prior to reinstalling it.

- It took me a while to realize (a new experience) that the tie rod adjuster jam nuts were counter-rotating, for example on the drivers side the outer nut turns to the right to loosen it and so does the receiver tube. Be careful with this when replacing the tie rod end. I also tried to use marking tape to mark the original positions of the old tie rod ends: Well, don't trust that method. Like an idiot, I took the truck out after completing the entire job and drive it for a couple hundred feet on pavement and heard loud skidding coming from the front tires as I turned the wheels side to side. Took it back to my garage and found both tires were essentially splayed out with wide toe-out. I readjusted it to get it relatively close to both pointing straight ahead and everything tracked fine from there, but I'm getting it aligned professionally today.

- When you go to reinstall the steering knuckle, make sure you don't install the grease fitting on the top of the new ball joint first. Again, like an idiot, I did that on the first knuckle and accidently lost my grip on the axle while holding the knuckle at the same time and it dropped directly on the grease fitting and broke it off. I couldn't get the stub removed out of the grease fitting hole, so guess what that meant: I had to removed the ball joint and install a new one. Stupid, stupid mistake. After the knuckle was reinstalled on the upper/lower ball joint, then I installed the grease fitting. It's really tight under the axle to get it in there but you can do it with patience. Just be careful to protect that grease fitting when you reinstall the knuckle if you decide not to take my advice.

All in all, it wasn't too bad of a job, just labor intensive and took a while, probably 8 hours on the first side on day one and about 3 hours on the other side once I saw how everything pieced together. You can tackle this at home if you have all the right tools, jacks, sockets, etc. and a LOT of PB blaster to remove stuck bolts and nuts. I bought all Moog parts because they were greaseable and heavier in construction.

Anyway, that was my experience, hope the precautions above will prevent further headaches for others giving it a try. The truck does turn like it was brand new and the popping noise is gone when turning sharp left during backing.

Good luck with it and thanks to those who posted here on how to replace ball joints.

 

Just saw a reply on the F150 page where a guy there says he removed the entire knuckle and brake assembly together (rather than remove the brake components separately) to replace the ball joints and thereby save time. I guess that could be done but it seems like it would be a heavy assembly to remove and tie out of the way. Oh well, I guess it's another method, not for me though.

 

Then you need to bleed brakes