98 Mountaineer- Upper and lower control arms and ball joints

[nickorsi]

I recently took my truck in to get an alignment and camber kit installed and was told I needed to replace both sides upper and lower arms and bushings.

I called some auto part stores and was told that I can only buy the ball joints as a complete assembly with the arms, not separately. But i've seen just the ball joints on their website. Do the arms really need to be replaced or can I just buy balljoints?

 

[Turdle]

To be honest-if it was me-
I'd replace the whole arms, and rest well knowing I had new control arm bushings as well.
You can do this yourself if you have tools. In fact, changing the whole arm is way easier then pressing out the old ball joint. Once you get the torsion bar out, that is.
Piecing out the ball joints-and bushings plus labor makes the new control arm a no brainer--


the uppers are replaced as a whole assembly-you can get lower ball joints and bushings separately.

 

[nickorsi]

Awesome. Thanks for the quick reply. Any suggestions on brands? I know MOOG is good but can get rather $$. do you know anything about Doorman?

 

[Turdle]

try this
www.rockauto.com

I'd have to recommend Moog--but I'd also go cheap for myself at this point.

 

[Dan Whitaker]

MOOG makes upper control arms with replaceable ball joints but they are considerably more money but you will need to replace both upper control arms now.

The MOOG upper arms will make the job easier next time you replace the upper ball joints.

 

[MountaineerGreen]

I recommend MOOG parts, they have a lifetime warranty and excellent parts.

As for the lowers, I don't want to argue with Jon, but I'd just replace them. Its not that difficult to press the ball joints out, IMO. Relieving the pressure off the torsion bars to remove the arms is a dangerous business, not for the faint of heart.

I have write ups with instructions and pictures for both upper and lower ball joint replacement. Click "my writeups" in my signature- they are there.

 

[Turdle]

I recommend MOOG parts, they have a lifetime warranty and excellent parts.

As for the lowers, I don't want to argue with Jon, but I'd just replace them. Its not that difficult to press the ball joints out, IMO. Relieving the pressure off the torsion bars to remove the arms is a dangerous business, not for the faint of heart.

I have write ups with instructions and pictures for both upper and lower ball joint replacement. Click "my writeups" in my signature- they are there.

I totally agree, except for the control arm bushings. Their replacement means new control arms with ball joints to be easiest. Am I off base?

 

[carlover]

Actually once the torsion bolt is removed, all you have to do is unbolt the upper arm from the spindle and remove your shock and the torsion bar falls right out. I just did this last weekend and worked flawlessly.

 

[MountaineerGreen]

I failed to see the bushings part, woopsie. Have you confirmed the bushings are bad? Mine at 120k+ were 100% fine. I don't doubt the ball joint diagnosis, but the bushing diagnosis is suspect to me. I'd check things out myself and go from there.

 

[nickorsi]

The bushings are not bad for what I know. I had Ford tell me to just replace the lower ball joints and I had another shop tell me replace the lower whole arm w/ ball joint. I've been debating back and forth on the lowers and which way to go. The truck is 10yrs old and has about 181k miles.

I'm also still torn between brands. Autozone has the Duralast with lifetime warr. and Advance sells TRW with lifetime warr. then there is Moog. I know Moog is supposed to be the best, but taking into acct. the mileage and year would the TRW or Duralast be ok?

 

[carlover]

For the lowers just replace the ball joints, dont replace the whole arm its really not needed. For the ball joints check out Rockauto.com, thier prices are unbeatable you can get the Moog parts for cheaper than the crap parts from autozone.