Tools: -Jack, wheel chocks, jack stands -Torque wrench -socket wrench -Sockets (13/16, 26mm) -Wire brush -Hammer -Pickle Fork -New ball joint/control arm assembly First off verify that the ball joint is your problem, jack the truck up and put your hands and the top and bottom of the tire. wiggle it. if the wheel assembly has play double check that the ball joint is moving and thats its not a bad wheel bearing. there is a measurement for how much is acceptable for ball joint play but not many people have a dial indicator. max allowable is around .050". but you can normally tell by how much the wheel is moving. it should be relatively tight. start by putting your wheel chocks down, loosening your lug nuts, jacking the truck up and setting it down on a jack stand. next take your tire off. i started by jacking the control arm up enough to unload the ball joint, also get something to put under the lower control arm so when you pop the ball joint out the lower arm and knuckle dont fall. take the castle nut off of the ball joint stud (13/16) and then put the pickle fork between the ball joint and the knuckle. hammer away untill it pops out. After the ball joint is popped out you have to take the 2 bolts out of the control arm, pretty sure they were 13/16s as well. you will need two sockets (or a wrench) once the bolts are out of the control arm you can take the old arm out. you may need to hammer it out. i used the pickle fork to pry from the bottom to push the arm out of the mount. before loosening the bolts you may want to make some alignment marks. the control arm bolts go through a slide which allow you to push the control arm in towards the engine or pull it outward, this will effect your camber. i forgot to mark mine but there is a mark where the washer for the bolts was sitting so i made sure the washer lined up with its original marks before tightening. once the arm is out take your wire brush and brush away any rust around the mount area. it will make it easier to put the new arm in place. Make sure you have the new arm the right way and slide it in the mount. you may need to hammer it in. once you work it in put the nuts and bolts back through the new control arm and tighten the nuts/bolts to 120 ft/lbs with your torque wrench. then put the stud of the new ball joint through the knuckle and put the castle nut on. this new nut with my Moog arm was much bigger than the factory nut. it was a 26mm nut. Torque this nut to 75 ft/lbs and grease it. (before putting the stud back into the knuckle make sure the mount hole is not out of round, also make sure that the grease boot on the ball joint is positioned right. there may be a small grease release on the boot, put this part of the boot away from the wheel assembly to avoid grease getting on rotors) Double check to make sure its all tight and put your wheel back on, put lugs nuts on, raise truck from stands, remove stands, lower truck to ground and tighten lug nuts to proper torque (i do 155 ft/lbs) enjoy! hope i didnt leave anything out.
lol i know right? everything is at the end of its life right now on the truck since its at 102k miles and its got all factory parts lol. Thanks guys!
my trucks approaching 100k, but i have no clue if anythings been replaced. I was just looking at the uca today and it actually looks like they have been replaced Tomorrow I'll have to check for wobble cause i wanna crank my tbars some!
crank em up man! i was thinking about just replacing the other arm as well just so i dont have to later. my buddy cut me a good deal for the part. he charged me $52 and its a MOOG unit. they wanted like $70 for it where he works at advance auto.
