Greetings everyone. Been a while since I posted here. During my last trip to the dealership, my service advisor recommended replacing the lower ball joints as they have a bit of play. That was several months back and I've put on quite a bit of mileage since then. Lately the ride has been a bit squirrelly around the bumps and I was expecting the ball joints to be in rough shape. I decided to tackle this project on my own, after studying several guides from other forums and checking out videos. I paid less than $200 everything that I needed, which was a ball joint press and lower ball joints. What I was quoted was 4.5 hours of labour ($120/HR) and two ball joints at $110 each. Everything in with taxes was around $850, not including an alignment. So basically I saved around $650 which is more than what I make in two days of work. I'm not going to explain all the tools you need to do this job on your own, all I can tell you is that you must have a ball joint press and you must have airtools! I can't imagine the poor fool that would try to attempt this with hand tools. It is possible, but you better have the strength of He-Man. Generally speaking you need all sorts of 1/2-inch drive metric impact sockets, both deep and shallow. You will need extensions and swivels and a damn good 1/2-inch drive impact wrench. My Chicago Pneumatic impact puts out more torque than 6.7 Powerstroke so I knew I had plenty. I bought my Moog lower ball joints from Rock Auto. They were $80 to my door. I chose this over Mevotech, AC Delco or Motorcraft because from my previous experience Moog has quality parts and these are greaseable. As with everything else, jack your truck up safely and have it on jack stands. I only have 2-ton jack stands so I used four in total. My FX4 is stock height so I can only imagine the difficulty of trying to raise a lifted truck. My 12-ton bottle jack was barely tall enough to raise the wheels off the ground. Remove the wheels, which are 21mm. Remove the dust cap in the centre of the axle, and remove the 13mm nut that holds the CV shaft in place. Remove the caliper by zipping off the 13mm bolts that hold it to the caliper bracket. Then set it aside and hang it with wire or something. Never let it hang off the brake line! You can then zip off the caliper bracket which has 18mm bolts. Remove the brake rotor and remove the ABS sensor with a #5 Hex. Pull the vacuum lines that hook into the IWE ends push them aside. Then you can zip off the 21mm upper ball joint castle nut, 21mm tie rod nut and 24mm lower ball joint castle nut. Take a BFH and hit the knuckle where the tie rod sits and where the upper ball joint sits and they should pop out. I wouldn't recommend a pickle fork because you'll wreck the rubber boots. I took a pickle fork to the lower ball joint since I was replacing it and it popped right off. Be careful 'cause that knuckle is cast iron and it is f**king heavy! Contrary to what others say, you do not have to remove the CV shaft/axle! Just push it aside and you'll have plenty of room to use your ball joint press. Now take your snap ring pliers, set them up for external rings and pop off that snap ring that holds the ball joint in place. Then take your press and line it up with the large receiving cup on the bottom with the receiving adapter plate on the C-Clamp. Impact the s**t out of that and the ball joint will come right out. Now set up your press and line it up with the medium receiving cup on the bottom with the receiving adapter plate on the C-Clamp. On the top of the C-Clamp you will set the receiving adapter. Now zip that b***h up until it is full seated and you'll have replaced your ball joint! Be sure that you look very, very well throughout the upper portion of the ball joint to see that it is fully seated and then set your snap ring pliers to put a new snap ring in place. Pop on the grease fitting with a 3/8-inch wrench and put some high pressure synthetic grease in there. Now is a good time to grease your upper control arm ball joints as well. Put the knuckle backl on, starting with the lower ball joint, CV shaft/axle and then upper ball joint. Finger tighten everything until it is all lined up. Once it's lined up then you can torque everything down. Upper ball joint and tie rod end is 85lb-ft, lower ball joint is 120lb-ft, axle nut is 20lb-ft. Reinstall the ABS sensor and the vacuum lines for the IWE. Be sure to use antiseize on the caliper bracket bolts and caliper bolts before putting everything back together. You may have to push the pistons back into the calipers before reinstalling the calipers. If you do this, either open up the bleeder valve or remove the master cylinder cap. After you put everything back go for a test drive to make sure it's all good. You will also need an alignment. I found out that my tie rod ends are also shot, so I'll be replacing them sometime soon. Then I'll get an alignment. There is a tremendous difference going over bumps now, it is nowhere near as squirrelly as before. I feel far more planted in the corners and the bumps don't disturb my steering as much. I must advise anyone out there that this is a very simple job. At first I was confused and wasn't too sure as I've never done lower ball joints using a press before. But this is a simple job and a great way to save money. Do it yourself, do a great job and save some money! Here is my ball joint press with the Moog lower ball joints. This is my driver-side wheel off with everything that I need to work on exposed for closer viewing. Here is the knuckle from the outer side. Damn this thing is heavy! Here is the knuckle from the inner side. Now that you've seen this you will know how to replace the wheel hub and the IWE should you ever need to. Here is the knuckle remove from the vehicle.
Here is my ball joint press set up to remove the original ball joint. Truck has 180,000km on it with original ball joints! Here is old with the new. The Moog part is greaseable, yet it costs 1/3 of the price of a Motorcraft! Here is the new ball joint in place! Time to put everything back together and go for a rip!
Thanks brother! Hope this helps anyone out there. I'll be doing an outer tie-rod write up when I get to it.
The dealer charges 4.5 hours, plus an alignment. It definitely will not take you over 3 hours to do this job, but you will still need a professional alignment. Some people can do it without air tools, and if you try it without air tools expect to spend more time and be sore after. Use high quality air tools and they'll pay for themselves the first time around! I also recommend Moog products. I have their lower ball joints and soon I will be doing a DIY guide for inner and outer tie rod ends.
