Ball Joints falling out

[Winterbeater94]

"Your Ball Joints are falling out." I hate this phrase it seams everytime i encounter an ####### mechanic that doesn't know what's wrong with a front end, they seams to use this term. they look like there in place to me. Also if they were falling out wouldn't there be uneven tire wear. what gets me the same place say 3 years ago did an inspection on my 95 Probe. now the ball joints on that were completly shot there was RTV all over them holding the boot together. and they say nothing about that. I wound up just replacingthe whole controll arm with that. But what it seams like the retart was hearing was the radial arm bushing's they seam to be wearing out again. On top of that they wanted $1300 to do the job. I told the guy to go take a walk for him self.

 

[glfredrick]

By now, I'd expect almost any Gen 1 Explorer to have bad ball joints. No big deal -- they're easy on a first Gen. It is the later ones that need an entire new arm before they can be replaced.

You can check them yourself at home.

Get a real jack (the little Ford one scares me for this sort of work) and lift one side of the front axle. As you lift, watch the tire. If it moves when the weight is taken off of it (as in: you'll see the bottom of the tire shift as the weight on the ball joints allows them to droop) you likely have bad joints, or at least one of the two.

With the truck on quality jack stands, tale the with weight off the tire, get to the side of the tire, push and pull it top and bottom. There should be ZERO movement. Any movement is either bad ball joints or bad wheel bearings.

You can also have a buddy do the pushing and pulling while you visually examine the joints behind the wheel. If you can see ANY movement, they are bad.