Hi all!

I just purchased a 2002 standard cab ranger 4x2 long bed with a 3.0 and auto. The truck is in really good condition with only 154k miles. It was owned by an old man that I took off his hands. I’m trying to go through truck as he didn’t do scheduled maintenance regularly.

When I’m on the freeway or bumpy roads the front end feels loose and makes sounds when hitting rough road conditions. It’s not metal on metal so I’m wondering if the front end should be rebuilt. Has anyone done this so soon in the trucks life? Is this typical? Amazon seems to have rebuild kits for pretty cheap but not sure if this will solve it. It drives straight and smooth on a smooth road.

 

Just to clarify, is it torsion bar or coil spring front suspension? I've got torsion bars, and I replaced the upper and lower control arms as an assembly at 165k miles. They were in pretty bad shape, and it cost just as much to get new bushings and ball joints as to get the whole control arms.

Since you're gonna have the front suspension apart, its a great time to replace sway bar bushings and end links, as well as tie rod ends. Don't get a kit, they're garbage usually. Most people report good results with moog parts. I ended up paying $100 for each lower control arm, $65 each for uppers, $30 for each tie rod end and the sway bar hardware and bushings was around $50. With tax and beer its still under $450 and you'll be good to go another decade or so. I'd check rock auto, usually have moog or motorcraft at a good price.
The shocks you can usually tell if they're bad by bouncing the front end. Do it by hand, get it rocking up and down then stop and see if it keeps bouncing. Shocks should stop it after one bounce.

 

It is a coil front end. So the kits have cheaper quality huh. Interesting. I was reading somewhere that the factory front sway bars are junk and can cause clunking sounds so it made me curious. Mileage wise it seems like I’m in the ball park of yours. Were your replacements parts fitted with rubber or polyurethane?

 

I got all Moog problem solver series because of their pricepoint on rock auto. They all have rubber bushings. If you want to do all the pressing, you can get poly bushings and new ball joints for around the price of new loaded arms.