How difficult is this to do. I just had the uppers done and when I went to get it aligned they said I need to do the bottoms now. Does anyone have any advise. I did a search for this and I wasnt sure if the 2wd is different than the 4wd. Thanks for your time.


Pics would be great

 

pretty sure 2wd is the same. i just did mine last week. its a lot easier on a hoist at work tho. pretty much disassemble the front end, wheel, pads/caliper, rotors, pop the tie rod out, remove the bottom nut on the lower balljoint, take the bolt that holds the knuckel to the top balljoint, remove the knuckle and you can press the lower ball joint out. dont need to remove the torson bar or the shock. o ya, remove the sway bar as well.
dont have any pix
if u never really done any front end work i would try and get a chiltons book or something that you can fallow before you attemp it.
and when you put the new balljoint back in, make sure its pressed all the way in the hole.

 

how would u know when u need to replace them

 

jack the truck up, move the wheel with your hands at 12 and 6, up and down pushing and pulling away from the truck. IF you have movement then its either upper or lower... then you gotta try and feel where it is.

 

What do you press it out with? And how do you press it back in? I assumed you had to take the whole lower control arm out and run to a shop with a press.

 

press it out with a BFH (big f'n hammer)

press it back in with a ball joint press

 

I have been lazy to do it because I thought I would have to take the control arm out. Looks like I have something to do now.

 

so its pull everything apart and put a new one in or......


BFH it out and press back in

 

How much do ball joints cost?

 

30-40 each for the lowers

 

ok
1) to check the lower, jack the truck up by some part of the frame
a) take a long bar, pry bar, piece of stock w/e
b) put the end on the ground under the tire, then take the other end and push up
c) watch the LBJ if you can visible see the BJ moving up and down then its probably time to replace it, or liek me you can feel something really sloppy in the steering.

and
2) when i did the LBJ i used a 2 jaw press, put a thick piece of metal between it and the BJ and pressed it as far as the threads went, then with it under pressure i took a big punch and a big hammer and beat on it.

then
3) putting it back in is tricky, well it was for me which is why i dont want to do it for a 3rd time.. now i dont have the resources i had back then. we had to use a variety of adapters for the press to get it back in straight.


sooooo HAVE FUN is all i have to say, it took me 2-3 hours for the first one, then once i knew what tools to use and what i was doing then it took me about 45 mins. AND that was in a shop, with my truck on a lift, instructor watching and helping me figure out wtf was going on bc ford has such a great design on not leaving any room between the LCA and BJ.... oh and i had a full tool room with everything i needed so no running to the store, and i was using air.... like i said, i still dont know if im going to attempt this in a parking lot


in fact it was such a big PITA and now im not working with Air and a lift im half tempted to buy the whole damn LCA lol, its only like $30 more

 

I'll help you do it, i've got a bfh and a ball joint press.

I'll help you as much as you helped me do the plugs...lol

 

So you will watch me do it and maybe pass a tool or 2.

 

Thats what i have... had to modify one of the adapter things


and yes christian... i'll hand you the tools... and might help out a little towards the end

 

well until i figured out what adapter ring thing to use to get it in flat, it was a HUGE pain in the *** lol

and the nearest harbor freight is 2 hours away, i dont think advance would appreciate me taking my grinder to their rental tools

 

[deleted]

 

I did mine a few weeks back. First time ever doing anything to a my truck. Took about 3 hours to do both sides.

I did lots of searching....

A few notes:
1) Get the balljoint tool, it works amazing.
2) Screw the BFH, get one of those pickle fork tools to get the old one out of your spindle, takes literally 5 seconds, no whacking with the hammer for hours.
3) I didn't remove the brakes or anything, just the tie rod....I just jacked er up (with jackstands), took the wheel off turned the spindle and did it (I put a jack under the sindle to help cause its a bit heavy and I was alone).

Although, if your in need of brakes soon, it would be a good time to do them since your in there. Mine are good until the summer.

So instead of paying the shop to do it, I saved a few hundred $$$ (I ended up spending that money on a cordless impact gun instead to help with the job - I love that tool). I didn't need an alignment after.

All that, and it was -10 outside.