Lol.

Does anyone know if the Moogs will come greased or not? I dont think I have a grease gun .....

 

How i know when my control arms are bad?

 

I had a clunking coming from up front, and it sounded very similar to bad sway bar bushings. With the wheels on the ground, go under the truck or reach around the tire and grab ahold of the control arm and try to move it. Mine had a ton of play in it, and I could hear the creaking.

When I checked it with the tire off, the ball joint didnt move. I only have play when its at the curb height position.

 

I'll try that tomorrow to see what happens!

Thanks rengnath!!!

 

i bet if you disconnect the battery overnight it will fix it....that eems to fix everything else....lol

 

LMAO. All kidding aside, I had a little play in my tie rod end before I took it apart to get my strut out. Put everything back together and there is no play in it what so ever.

 

If I turn up the radio, it seems to fix any noise issue in my front end.

You just dont want any movement from the joints upfront. My tie rod ends move just slightly if I put some force in to them, but I dont think they are bad. Either way, I will probably swap them out in the summer while its nice.

 

They are installed.

No pictures, and no how-to.

Took me all of 2 hours, but I took my time. It was rather easy, with simple hand tools. As suspected, the driver's side had noticable play in the ball joint.

The good part is, the upper control arms cannot be adjusted on this truck. There was nothing to mark to keep the arms in alignment. No camber bolts, thats all done below. All the adjustments are done on the lower arm.

You simply remove the ball joint nut, knock the arm loose then remove the two mounting bolts, that are quite easy to break free since there @ 75lbs. Yank the old control arm out of there, slide the new one in, bolt it up, done.

Greased the **** out of the new ones with Mobil 1 Synthetic grease, which is overkill...its just a ball joint.

Everything bolted right up. Had the truck on stands and when it was time to bolt the arm back onto the knuckle, i simply jacked up the lower arm, pressed down on the upper arm slightly, and bolted her right up. No pry bar needed. Truck drives well, steering seems tighter.

I inspected the lower ball joints and they seem tight and in good shape. Hopefully I will get a few more years out of them. The original uppers had plenty of grease in them, so hopefully so do the lowers. ( I cut open the boots on the uppers after i removed them.)

If you have never done upper control arms before, and are wondering if you can tackle it, I would say on this particular truck it is as easy as, or easier then changing your brake pads.

Don't pay a shop to do this job. There is literally nothing to it, nothing to knock out of alignment. 3 bolts and you are done.

 

Hardest part for me was to get the old ball joint bolt out of the assembly, but after trying to pry it out, and using a rubber mallet, I finally just brought out the 5lb sledge and went to town. Other than that, it was a little tricky getting the bolt out on the passanger side, closest to the front of the truck. The wheel well plastic was right in the way, so it was tricky to get the torque wrench in there.

 

Yes. You are right about the passenger side front bolt, it was a little tricky, I just shoved the wrench in there and did my best to hold it straight and steady. Luckily it was just a plastic shield.

I had a pickle fork for the ball joints, but I didn't bother to use it, I used a nail hammer on the side of the knuckle along with the weight of the lower a arm at droop.