My truck needs some new ball joints BAD! The grinding noise is terrible when I hit bumps and steer around in a parking lot. I narrowed it down to the ball joints and I'm gonna take it to the dealership soonso they can look at them and tell me which ones I need to replace. The dealership said it would be $100 a ball joint (could be all 4!)plus the labor and if it's the whole assembly it will be even more. I really don't feel like spending that much on a truck I'm gonna sell before long. I have a friend that can get me the parts at cost. My question is, is this a job that I can do myself? Can someone explain to me how to do it? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

It might be hard to believe, but these are the original ball joints with almost 237,000 miles on them.

 

her is a link to pavementsucks.com diy

http://www.pavementsucks.com/tech/balljoint.php

 

I did a whole writeup of all three weeks of my debacle with the balljoints. In short, I went with Spicer Red line balljoints, cheap and effective. I mean cheap like 13-14 bucks a balljoint. got those off Rockauto.com. Tear down the wheel to the knuckle, get the puller kit and balljoint kit from ADVANCE auto parts. The other kits are useless. Get/Rent a ball joint fork. Use the big puller that looks like a crab claw for the tie rod ends (might make a loud BANG sound). And a hammer that's at least 5lb. 10lb if you can manuever it in those tight spots.

 

I paid for the labor on my truck as I had never done it before and thought it might be hard. I paid $700 and some from a local shop parts and labor with Spicer ball joints that seems to treat me right on the price. I used to work for them.

Anyway I needed them on my Chevy Caprice too so instead of paying I decided to buy a Harbor Frieght press and try it myself. It wasn't hard at all. It just took a little while on the first side because Alldata's instructions made it look like you were pressing it the wrong way out. Took me a while to figure out I wasn't pressing it the right way to come out. The truck may be harder but I'm not sure I'd pay anyone else that kind of money to do it again as it wasn't that hard.

I was told for the truck you either need to find a piece of something or make an adapter to use the Habor Frieght press on these trucks but I don't know for sure. Advance rents out a huge set that apparently is the best way to go for doing these trucks so maybe check into that.

 

237,000 miles on the ball joints? Holy ****, that truck is a safety hazzard and shouldn't be driven. One of those pops out of the socket and you'll lose control quickly.

 

Ball joints are fun. If you got a 2WD truck, I guess you can say, "Hammer time." I've yet to have to do my uppers but to remove the lower ball joints your just going to need a ratchet, some sockets, a ball joint install tool kit, and a 5lb hammer. Not too difficult, but be sure that you check all of your ball joints before replacing all of them because the uppers don't go as fast as the lowers, at least not on my truck. How did you check all of them? I've learned to check them by getting under the car and trying to squeeze them with some 20" channel locks to see if the ***** are loose inside the sockets and by having someone turn the steering wheel rapidly from left to right as I watched for excessive place with a flashlight.

 

BAD ADVICE. Do it right and rent a ball-joint press from your local parts store. O'Reilly Auto Parts and Autozone both rent tools.

 

I've heard the Autozone ball joint presses are a smaller kit like the Harbor Frieght and don't have the adapter you need for these either but I don't know as I haven't used it or the HF one on this truck.

To check the ball joints jack it up by the control arm and see if it has any up and down play if you grab the wheel at the top and bottom and shake it in and out. Then stick a prybar under the wheel and pull up to see if it has any play in them that way. If it has play from you pushing the wheel side to side that means tie rod ends.

 

Bad advice? Hammer is for pounding on the spindle when the bolt at the end of the ball joint won't break free of the bond that was created between the two. Jack car up using frame, then jack up the lower lower control arm to compress the spring, remove bolt from shock mount, disconnect sway bar link, and pound on the spindle to release the ball joint from the spindle. The with the install kit, remove the ball joint from the control arm. What's wrong with that?

 

Really though, look up my thread about my expierence. Goes through everything a Noobie possibly could, LOL.