I just finished the ball joint replacement on my 2000 4x4 Ex. WOW. It took me quite a while, prob about 10 hours, but a lot of time was wasted by not having the right tools the first time. This note is to help anyone doing ball joints on an Excursion, F-250 SD or F-350 SD.

1. the autozone pickle fork (loaner 27020) is too small. It works for the tie rod ends, but is not wide enough for the ball joints. Get (2) of their 27021 Pitman Arm pickle forks, they are wide enough for the massive ball joints on an excursion/super duty.

2. Print out the directions that Racerguy put together on here. I spent plenty of time going back in the house to check torque values, etc.

3. The "oil seal" aka Axle/Knuckle seal installation tool is a must, but make sure the flange is square to the pipe. I have a lathe so I trued mine up, but they are just crappy chinese pipe fittings so mine were WAY out. I dont know what the consequenes would have been if I tried to drive them on with an out-of-square driver. See item 4.

4. The axle-knuckle "oil seal" seals are a 0.010 inch interference fit (!!!) This means unless you have a 5 lb hammer and can swing it like Paul Bunyan, you need a bigger hammer. I never saw this mentioned in any of the write ups. I tried for a LONG time to fit these on using a regular hammer, tried grinding the lip to lead it in, and only after I measured it (I thought I might have the wrong part?) I realized I needed a REALLY BFH. I whaled on it about 8 times with a 5 pound sledge to get them seated. That was WAY more than I was expecting. I felt like I was driving railroad spikes.

5. The typical ball joint press they have as a loner is damn near too small. Expect to make up some spacers and etc to get the job done. If you can beg/borrow a kit made for a heavy truck, that would work 100x better. I was extremely worried I was about to destroy the loaner press I got from advanced auto... and I was probably close.

6. After breaking a 33mm socket (thanks autozone chinese crap) I realized that a pipe wrench works great for removing stubborn ball joint locknuts (upper and lower). Pipe wrench highly reccomended. Stick a 6 foot lever pipe on the handle and those stubborn nuts crack like glass. Then use the crappy socket for installing the new ones, apparently they can handle 150 ft-lb. Barely.


All said and done, I would do it again since I saved $800 in labor and it only cost me a weekend. I could probably do it in half the time next time. Here's to another 95k! My party bus drives like new. It is amazing how much difference it makes. My old ball joints had .050 play on the driver lower and 0.125 play on the passenger lower. The uppers were fine.

I hope this helps some people.

 

Rep points sent to you for your tips.