lower ball joint symptom

[Blee1099]

Can someone tell me what the symptoms are for a bad lower ball joint going bad? I read somewhere that you should be able to tilt your wheel up and down a little. Which I cannot do however, I experience alot of vibration going over bumps, turning, and taking off really hard. I'm guessing it's the ball joint since they have 90K miles on them.

 

[FMExplorer]

Sounds like bushings to me. Balljoints won't allow the tire to move when they are good - you should have zero play when tilting from the top and bottom. You may want to check your bearings and cv joints as well - I know they are prone to failure.

J

 

[PghBill]

Lower Ball Joint

Here is a thread that starts with the symptoms I recently experienced with my '97 XLT.

Dead Link Removed

Turns out the ball joint was totally siezed.

Good Luck!

 

[Blee1099]

I orginally thought it was the auto 4x4 kicking in because when I was turning or even parallel parking, the truck would surge/vibrate. I don't think this is normal, however my experiences with 4wd is very limited since my previous vehicle was a 2WD/4HI/4LO. Well it's too wet to crawl under the truck to look so I decided to take it to a good friend to have him take a look plus I rather have him change the lower ball joints since they are 90K old and the original. I rather have a set of Moog with grease fittings.