Lower Ball Joints

[FJK]

In checking out the front suspension of my 94 4X4, I notice play with the lower ball joints after 75K miles. Is this common for my vehicle? More importantly, does anyone have some knowledge on what is involved in replacing the lower ball joints on a 4X4? Maybe a thread or former post which describes all that's involved.
Thanks, FJK

 

[Exploderman]

I found a bad lower joint at 112,000 miles. If you have average mechanical skills you can do the job yourself if you have a reasonably equipped shop. The only bad thing is it requires considerable disassembly of the front end, down to pulling the drive shaft out of the affected side. If you do like I did, you will do wheel bearing service and front brake service at the same time. Might as well while you in there! Get a good shop manual that details what is needed for tools, and what you need to do. I allowed a weekend to do the work.

 

[mdrut]

you also might want to consider replacing the bushings, end links, sway bar, radius arm and pivet bushings, alot easier when it's all apart and you'll get a better behaved ride.

 

[tiessen]

I'm a hack and from the time I opened my Haynes manual to the time I test drove was less than 6 hours. That's both sides and included driving to a machine shop to have my old joints pressed out and new ones pressed into the knuckle. Everything else I did myself. Good luck.

Cheers
Dale

 

[tdavis]

when you do them , also do the uppers.

doing the lowers, and then having to do the uppers a few thousand miles later is not fun..

 

[Paul Gagnon]

I did mine a few months ago. It wasn't too hard. I rented a balljoint press and it was pretty quick.