Put all new ball joints in my truck this weekend, here are a few notes from the job.

1: I ordered Ed's "Ball Joint Kit". it has all the seals etc you will want to replace while in there. A note on the kit, the Motorcraft ball joints have grease zerks in them, unlike the original OEM from Ford, a good thing in my opinion.

2: The day before I started the job, I took the truck to the local high presure car wash and really hosed down the front end under neath. Started with wheels turned all the way left, cleaned as much as i could, then all the way to the right and repeated. this made for a MUCh cleaner job, less dust to get into grease, etc.

3: I bought a cheap chinese ball joint kit from Harbor Freight. I had heard mixed reviews on it, but found it to work perfectly fine with no other needed fittings other than what is in the case for 55 bucks or so. I did fully coat the bolt on the press with anti sieze so as not to eat up the aluminum C clamp with the steel bolt as instructed by Kwikordead a few weeks ago.

4: I did make one of these seal seaters, for about $14 at the local contractor supply house. Here is the link Axle Seal Tool, needed for ball joint installation

5: As a point of reference leading into this job, I had this link available. Ford F250 F350 Super Duty ball joint replacement article.

6: Once I had the axles pulled out, I vacumed the axle tubes out, then used a 3 inch wire wheel for a power drill tack welded onto a 3 foot piece of conduit to clean the tube, revacuumed, then ran a t-shirt with some lacqure thinner on it up the tube to pick up excess dust. Didn't want to get any dirt on the tip of the axle on reinstall into my pumpkin. (probably over kill, but it made me feel better )

7: While I was into everything, I did grease my "non-servicable" wheel bearing through the ABS sensor hole. It was amazingly dry in there, took a good 25 shots on each side before it seemed to be getting full. (3 shots, roll spindle, 3 shots, roll spindle, etc)

8: It took me approximately 8 barley sodas to do both sides of the truck.

 

Good notes! Glad you got her done with out the episode I went through.

 

Glad it went well for you Tom.

 

Good deal Tom, Ed told us a while back that the Motorcrafts come with zerks now, a must IMO. Happy safe motoring.

 

You forgot the notes about looking for the wrench you need that's right in front of your face, smashed knuckles, bad words muttered, bad words yelled...

 

Thanks all.

The job went really smoothly, I don't have a single bleeding knuckle from it amazingly. The 4 nuts holding the wheel bearings in were the hardest, but 1/2" breaker bar with a 2 foot cheater on it, and they spun right off.

With the link handy to reference if I had a bout of CRS, nothing was a suprise, really one of the easier jobs I have done on the truck.

I had alot of blood on me after doing glow plugs and doing all the under valve cover work. In all actuality, now that I think about it, the ball joints took less time than when I did glow plugs I am pretty sure, although it all becomes irrelivant after enough barley sodas