Waboose, sounds like you do work that truck hard. Hope you get it fixed.

Broncobob, you are correct - leaf sprung Twin Traction Beam.

MisterCMK, my point was that my F250 was engineered correctly for the application, hence no failure.
I do hear a lot of people complaining of Expedition ball joint early failures. Inspection stations here love it when an Expedition comes in.
When an aftermarket company has to redesign and beef-up a factory design part in order to cure a common failure, I would call that poor engineering.

I do wonder, is it the ball joints or the IFS?

 

I think my ball joints are shot... not sure if its upper or lower....or both. How can i check them out? I have a 5.4 with 33 inch tires and 106k miles, so it sounds like its about time. Im interested in doing moog bal joints... does anyone have a how to thread? what tools do i need? Im a pretty experienced mechanically, ive just never done this on my truck... tips? How much can i expect to pay at autozone for a new set of lowers?
thanks all

 

MOOK929RR, to check for play in the ball joints here's how:

Park the vehicle on a flat surface and apply the parking brake.
Take a floor jack and place it under one a-arm as close to the tire as possible without touching it.
Jack up the a-arm enough to raise the tire off the ground about two inches.
Using a pry bar, lift up on the steering knuckle using the a-arm as a leverage point.
If it moves more than .030" it is considered worn out. Most have no movement.
Important note: do not try to measure play while vehicle is on a frame lift or with the suspension fully uncompressed. It will give a false good reading.

As for cost, I got my Moog lower ball joints at AutoZone for about $40/ea and free use of ball joint service kit. Uppers were $80/ea and you will need front end alignment afterwards.
The ball joint kit has general instructions on how to use it only for R & I of the ball joint. This would be a good time to invest in a Haynes manual. You will need to remove the brake caliper and rotor, so it's a great time to do brakes.
I upgraded my truck to EBC slotted (not drilled) rotors and Green Stuff SUV performance pads. In stock form these trucks need help with braking, especially with bigger tires like yours.
I did not disconnect my tie rods and did not unbolt my axles from the center section like the manual says. Just be careful. The worst time you will have will be seperating the ball joints.
Read my previous posts regaurding slop an pitting.

Good luck.

 

If you haven't done a front end alignment on your Expedition yet, you will also have to replace the bolts for the upper control arms with the bolts that have the eccentric washer on them for the alignment, so rather than paying an alignment shop to install these do the changeover when replacing the upper contol arms

 

Thanks guys... I bought Moog lowers and upper control arms, also bought Moog outer tie rod ends... Im going to do rotors and brakes while im at it... going on my 4th set of rotors and 5th set of pads... Im going with Rotor Pro drilled/slotted. I did the EBC slotted and Green stuff pads on my second set... those rotors were really noisy, and pads were very dusty...just my .02. The Haynes manual seems to show that the truck already has the bolt with eccentric washer, and tells you to mark it before you remove, so that you can try and line the marks up when u install the new upper control arm... so does the truck have what i need, or do i need to buy this bolt/washer combo in order to get my alignment right? if i need to buy...where can i get them online?
thanks!

 

What the haynes manual shows is a pickup truck which didn't have the torsion bar suspension as my 98. You will only have to worry aobout the special bolts if your Exp has never been aligned yet, but if you are on your 4 th set of rotors chances are good it has been aligned at least once. Easy enough to look in the wheel wells before you start.

 

Drilled/slotted rotors provide NO benefit to braking and can infact take away from available braking power.

 

Putting half the crap we put on our cars/trucks doesnt help performance, but it sure looks cool right MrCMK?
The only time drilled/slotted rotors would take away from braking power would be if you were pushing a race car to its limit on a track. The drilled holes provide a weak point in an overheated rotor and can cause it to crack or break... But for driving on the road with a truck, its doesnt hurt braking at all and would NEVER crack.
I run the same rotor pro cross drilled/slotted rotors on my Cobra, as do half the guys in my mustang club... all very happy with them.
Have any info on ball joints to add?

 

I got busy on Friday... Did ball joints, upper control arms, outter tie rod ends, sway bar bushings, rotors, and brakes... Not a very fun job, but with the right tools it wasnt very hard, just took a long time. You need patience, a lot of time, and a lot of cold ones... I rate this one right up there with changing the plugs.
RacerGuy's post is VERY helpful, i did exactly what he listed using a pickle fork and ball joint press. First side took me about 4.5 hours... just took my time and made sure i wasnt screwing up. Second side, as always was a piece of cake, took me 3 hours including clean up. Here are my tips:
- i saw a thread that mentioned breaking the zerk fittings. DEFINITELY do not screw in the zerk fittings until everything else has been all put together, this was the last thing i did. If you dont, there is a great chance you will snap one off, they are delicate.
- dont be affraid to apply some real pressure on that ball joint press... i was really cranking on it and all the sudden BAM!, that thing popped right out.
- my autozone rental press only had 3 fittings. Becasue of the size of our vehicle, and the size of the ball joint, that was not enough. I had to run back to Autozone and rent a second press... i needed the same size sleeve fitting on top and bottom of press. If my original press has like 6 or 8 fittings i would have been fine.
-if you do tie rod ends be very careful to mark them off, i used touch up paint. because if you dont get the new ones in just like the old ones were, ur steering wheel is gonna be all out of whack. I had my brother sit in the car for a few mins and hold the wheel straight as i popped the tie rod end back into the steering knuckle on each side. You are always going to need an alighnment after, but this helped me get it as close as possible.
-u are taking this thing all apart, u may as well replace as much crap as u can or need to.... I put new brakes and rotors on also. if u need sway bar end links, or bushings, or anything in there, do it now while its apart!
-there is a castle cover over the axle nut... i stared at that thing thinking...what the heck kind of nut is that!? for quite a few minutes before i realized it was a cover and the nut was underneath... haha.
-other than these tips, just take your sweet time... if you are mechanically inclined and have about 8 hours, u can definitely do this... i was for damn sure not paying my local dealer $1850 !! (the whole thing was about $450 in parts for me)
good luck.

 

You guys are playing yourselves by using MOOG parts. Many times they outsource to overseas manufacturers and the parts are weak crap. Spicer is where its at. Spicer parts are made by the Dana Corp and are far far better than MOOG.

Ive seen several MOOG ball joints that were only half a ball in a socket. They should be a full ball in a socket. Spicers are full *****.

 

I had the original Upper and Lower Ball joints go on my 1997 expedition go bad at just under 110,000 miles. We had to replace the replacement again at about 150,000. This year with 173,000 the shop said they needed replacing again but I have to be honest since the truck hit 150k miles I have had little reservation driving about driving off road, over logs, rocks, etc so this last time was due to rough use.

I plan to do things differently with the 2000 we just picked up and buy better replacements the first time as while I don't mind paying for repairs I have learned it pays to keep an older expedition on the road.

 

another thing to take in serious consideration is to replace the idler arm at the same time with the ball joints

 

I would only partially agree with the statement regarding brakes. Crossdrilled rotors in a Stock application can reduce braking. Slotted rotors with a very good brake pad such as Hawk, or maybe Performance Friction. I speak from experience on with both on-track, and normal daily driver duties. If one would use cross drilled then one MUST increase rotor and pad size to accommodate the loss of matterial on the rotor, which can be as much as 11%. Now,with slotted rotors one might lose around 3% of matterial, but where they make up is the cooling fins between the the rotor halves, also their self cleaning ablilty. I can say that my expy stops on a dime and gives you seven cents change compared to the stock brakes. I must clarify that I do run my truck pretty hard on the street and off road, and there is a big difference for the good. If anyone on here just "drives" and nothing else then, yes the factory system is just fine, but most of us on here are "car nuts," and just cant leave things alone...lol! Just my two cents worth...

 

Besides it just being a good rule of thumb to get an alignment, is it really nessisary to do so after replacing the upper and lower ball joints? Is the upper controlling arm notched or something to provide adjustment? I have a '99 Expy with 5.4L and 4x4 with a bad LF upper ball joint and RF lower ball joint. The front end shakes really bad and the steering wheel rocks back and forth. Both joints listed above have a really good amount of movement in them so I will be replacing all four ball joints in the coming days.

Anyone have problems with NAPA parts? I get a really good discount on NAPA parts and figured I'd just buy from them.

Shane

 

you definitely have to do an alignment, or u will run through a set of front tires in 10k miles... when u do the upper arms, u need to purchase a castor/camber kit... which is basically a new mounting bolt with plates that have notches in them... any good alignment shop will demand u use this kit to get ur truck aligned perfectly... if u search castor cambor kit, u will see a bunch of threads about guys who have used, and guys who have not... and the results...