front end noise
I have 191,000 on my explorer having never done any front end work. I had a really bad noise coming from the left front when turning left and hitting any kind of bump. It would also pull slightly right. I had a tire shop give me an estimate for both lower ball joints and upper control arms. The estimate was over $1000. I am 70 years old with a limited income and that estimate forced me to consider doing my own work again. I love my explorer but it probably is not worth a repair of that amount. The parts estimate was $340 and I ended up paying just $130 with shipping from Rock Auto for Moog parts. IMO, it is just a rip off for shops to double the price of parts and still charge $95 an hour for labor. The labor estimate was for 6 hours and as a novice at ball joint replacement, I spent about the same amount of time. If I did it again, I could get my time down to at least 4 hours so their time estimates are high also.
For the passenger side, I elected to replace the two piece upper with a Moog single piece unit to save money since I doubt I will have the explorer long enough to wear out those parts again. That also provided for replacement of all control arm bushings. The drivers side took me about 4 hours because of the rear control arm bolt interfering with brake and fuel lines. I finally got if out and ended up cutting about 3/8" off the bolt to make it easier to reinsert. It is plenty long anyway. I decided to add the one piece camber adjust washers from specialty products in case I needed some camber adjustment. They provide less camber adjustment than the kits containing the bolt and two washers each. That added $23 to my cost. Both of the upper ball joints had some wear but not excessive. Both of the lower ball joints were totally shot with noticeable side movement and about 1/8" up and down play.
The passenger side took me about 2 hours. The non specific ball joint press I rented from Auto zone didn't fit just right for either ball joint. I ended up using a flat piece of 1/4" steel over the control arm instead of the adaptor to get the ball joint started until the adaptor would fit over the top of the ball joint. I still had to use the 1/4" steel to get enough room to use the press. I was probably doing something wrong because it no doubt should have worked. Even with that minor problem, the lower ball joints pressed in fairly easy.
The single washer camber adjust looks just like the washer side of the bolt head except it has a 3/8 socket wrench hole as an adjustment point. I aligned the adjust washer just like it originally was before removal.
To get the alignment close, I put the tires on and checked the camber for a 90 degree angle from the floor of the garage. My garage floor is level as best we could pour it years ago with no intentional slope. On the drivers side, it was about 1/32 positive camber from top to bottom the rim and I elected to make no changes. On the passenger side it was about 1/8" positive camber so I adjusted that to about 1/32" also. For the toe in, I jacked up the car and sprayed a white line in the middle of the tread as I rotated the tire. I then took a block of wood and straight slot screwdriver and made a mark in the paint as I spun the tire again. With the car lowered, I used two blocks of wood about 6 inches high against the front of each tire and measured the distance between the lines. I repeated that measurement in the back. It came out at 1/16" toe in and I made no changes. The caster is now no longer adjustable via the two piece control arm since I replaced the passenger side two piece with the one piece design.
I then drove to the alignment shop to get it properly aligned. I read on their website where they honor coupons from other alignment shops. I found a coupon for a truck alignment at another shop for $39.95 and Traction Tire honored that coupon. I just did not want to drive the extra 15 miles to the other shop with an alignment that might not be too good. The manager said that sometimes when they are attempting to align a do it yourself job, the readings won't even be on scale so they would have to make adjustments before they could get readings. There would be additional charges in that case.
On the drive to Traction Tire, the explorer had no pull left or right and the offset to the left steering wheel was once again almost centered. The tires had extensive inside wear so the bad lower ball joints were definitely causing some excessive toe as well as camber problems. I also noticed the steering feels tight again and more sensitive to input than I had gotten used to.
When the explorer was put on the alignment rack, I was totally surprised that all readings were in the green, toe, camber and caster. He said he could tweak it some if I wanted but it would be just fine as is. That made me feel pretty good about my do it yourself alignment with a carpenters square and a can of spray paint. I got by with just a $20 alignment check.
I certainly thank all those who post on this forum and the good videos on youtube.
UPDATE:
About 6 months after I replaced the ball joints, I began to hear a noise from the right side when going over speed bumps. I lived with the noise for about a year before I noticed some inner wear on the front tires. I checked the ball joints and found movement in the upper ball joint control arm. When I first replaced the ball joints, I decided the use the cheaper line of Moog parts. That turned out to not be the best decision. I replaced it last week with the Moog "problem solver line" at almost twice the cost of the original part. It took me about 1.5 hrs to do the replacement. I had to do another alignment but now, the noise is gone.
