I've determined that my ball joints are worn. The PO never greased any of the joints and now with 111K miles on them they are starting to show their wear.

I searched the forum and I still have a couple of questions

1) It looks like you have to take the brake line bracket off to get at the top joint. I assume that I take off the two bolts and then bend the brake line to the caliper a little to get it out of the way. Is that right or is there an easier way? I'm afraid I might break off the bracket bolts. I'm in WI where everything is rust.

2) Is there an order that I should do this in? Should I do one side and then the other or both bottoms first or doesn't it matter. I might try to split this up a little before purchasing all four and finding out I'm getting myself into trouble.

Any little hints on this would help. I saw the post about using a pitman arm puller and hammer. That sounds like a great idea. I tried the hammer alone on my last truck and couldn't get enough on it to break it loose.

Thanks in advance!

Shedman

Are you talking about ball joints or tie rod ends?

Ball joints have 4 bolts and one large stud.
TRE's have one stud and a threaded adjuster sleeve.
You don't have to mess with the brake line or the steering arm that the hard brake line bracket is bolted to for any of them.

Ball joints.


The upper ball joint stud gets close to the brake line bracket. I don't think I can get a socket and drive on the castle nut without moving the brake line. Maybe I'm wrong. It just looks that way to me.

Here's how I plan on doing this.

Lower ball joint first. Jack up the wheel and put the socket or some sort of spacer in between the upper bump stop and control arm. Remove cotter pin and spin castle nut almost off but leave it attached to the stud. Put the puller on and smack the knuckle with BFH until control arm comes off stud. Remove the four bolts and ball joint.

Upper ball joint. Same as above but try it without puller first.

So you don't think the brake line is in the way? I hope you're right it would make things a lot easier.

UBJ- put something (wood or a socket) between the UCA and the upper bumpstop to prevent the arm from drooping when you jack up the truck. Jack up the truck, loosen but do not remove castle nut. Smack steering knuckle a couple of times on each side and the knuckle should drop down onto the nut. No puller needed, so the brake line shouldn't be a problem. The rest is fairly self explanitory.

LBJ- Leave that spacer under the UCA, unbolt UBJ and use a pitman arm puller or sturdy TRE puller to get the stud out of the LCA. Whacking the lower one doesn't usually work very well since its hard to get at and gravity is working against you unlike with the UBJ. A pickle fork might work, but I've never tried that method.

If you don't keep the UCA from drooping or your t-bars are cranked, it will be more difficult to get the CA's far enough apart to get the BJ's in and out.

HTH.