ball joints

[Scott C]

Well it looks like we need to replace the front left ball joint on the ST. I got a quote from a tire dealership for 650.00 to replace 3 ball joints, front left, front right and rear. Is that a good price, is this something I could do? I'm pretty confident in my skills but I've never done a ball joint before. Do I need any special tools that I may not have, like some type of press?



Any information you can give me will be appreciated!



Scott

 

[EddieS'04]

Do you mean upper and lower ball joints or control arm bushings?

your explanation is not clear..If it is ball joints and they said 3...there is 4 total...uppers and lowers, left and right...replace all 4, not just 3...the 4th one wont be far behind the other 3 of going bad...

 

[Scott C]

sorry, yes it is 4 ball joints I didn't see the 'qty 2' part



Well I bought the parts after some searching here and it sounds like I should be able to do this w/o problem. I'm sure if I run into a glitch I'll be back begging for answers to my questions.

 

[Yardsale]

Yup - replace all (four) of them.



There are aftermarket replacement lower ball joints, so you don't have to replace the lower control arms. The upper ball joints are replaced with new upper control arms.



Total cost for mine was about $800.00 at a tire and brake store. Dealer quoted about the same. I typically use factory parts, but I went aftermarket because I didn't want to reward Ford for a poor design and I didn't want to pay to experiment with their new design that may or may not be adequate.

 

[Ben Poche]

same here $800 with an alignment and cam kit

 

[John Galdieri]

how many miles do you guys have .. i have 108k and was thinking of replacing the ball joints/control arms at 150k ... and where did you order the parts from?

 

[Ben Poche]

2001 4x4 68000 miles

 

[Scott C]

How do you get out the lower ball joints!!?? They are killing me.:blink:

 

[Yardsale]

'01 4WD, changed at 118,000 miles.



Checking with friends in the automotive industry, I have been told that upper ball joints fail rarely and that lower ball joints should last a lot longer than 100,000 miles (depending on driving habits). The lower on mine showed about 1.5mm movement and the upper less than 1mm.



The shop used Moog parts (and they have grease fittings).

 

[Tom Schindler]

Scott C.,



Use a pickling fork to remove the ball joint from the spindle. IIRC, you remove the clip out of the lower control arm and then tap the jpint out of the control arm.



It is simple once you know how to do it. Once you figure it out, you will kick yourself.





Tom

 

[Scott C]

do you tap it from the top down? I removed the retainer clip and got the bottom of the ball joint out of the spindel but I couldn't get the ball joint out of the lower control arm, I did tap it but maybe not hard enough?

 

[Scott C]

Tom...not sure you got my next question. I tried to hit them from the top down but I couldn't get them out, is there a trick?