Hey all, I was hoping that someone could offer me a bit of help here. I have read other posts for days now but really could not find what I was looking for.

I have a 08 f150 4x4 supercab xtr. Had it in the other day for a transmission fluid flush and some other small stuff. Shop told me I needed upper ball joints(and control arm) and alignment to the tune of 550 bucks.

I have been searching many posts and the upper and lower ball joints seem fairly straigh forward to do myself. Anyways, im just looking at uppers right now. In the picture below you can see my front end with the large coil spring. In other photos of my year truck I have seen a slightly different set up. In my truck, the upper camber bolts are stuck behind the large coil spring, and I am worried I might not get them out with removal of the spring. Should I have to remove the spring. The other trucks I have seen are a bit simpler. The camber bolts are above that whole housing there rather than inside.

Also, when I take out the control arms on the uppers(assuming I can get the bolts out), do I need to mark anything, or will the new ones fit tight right in there. I have heard some say I need the camber kit, but I doubt that on a new truck like this. Should be able to bolt the new control arm with the same bolts.

66k Miles on this truck. I will be putting on greasable fittings. I am very dissapointed with the quality of the stock ford sealed joints. Anyone that can offer any help with my specific set up here would be greatly greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

Why do u think ur ball joints are bad? Noise?

BTW u should be able to swing out ur spring and leave it bolted on on the lower control arm, not difficult at all..

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They said they were bad and couldnt do an alignment as it woudlnt hold it. I did jack it up and verify myself. They do have quite a bit of play in the uppers. Bottoms still seem tight. How would I go about swinging the spring out of the way If i need to(not even sure if i do yet).

I am just trying to decide if I should tackle this job myself or pay the shop(hate to do that). I used to do all of my work, but it was mostly on older trucks, and frankly I found them a lot easier to work on.

Thanks for the response.

 

The spring is connected at the top and bottom.. u can see it connected at the top in ur pic. When the upper ball joint is released and the spring is fully relaxed u can loosen the lower bolt. U can them take a pry bar and very easily POP the top out of its mount. The lower bolt will stay connected and the spring can rotate on that.. BTW if u were ever thinking about leveling ur truck this would be the time to do it...

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Absolutely! I was just gona say that. Do a leveling kit. 2.5 for the 08. Just got mine from Rough Country. Hope I can get to it this weekend. Good Luck.

 

do i need a cam bolt kit after doing the upper ball joints.....

also most of the f150 ive seen the cam bolt kit is on the upper control arm, however on my truck i think it would go on the lowers just by lookin at it.....am i correct....not sure why ford changed this up....i really dont like this current design

 

i was thinking about the leveling kit, but this is MOSTLY a farm truck so im not sure i really need it on this one...probably will do it eventually on my f250 everyday truck

 

Go rent the ball joint tool from a local auto parts store and do it yourself. Just make sure you press them in equally. Besides that it's a gravy job just time consuming.

 

I just replaced all 4 ball joints on mine at 60K when I put my lift on. When I went to get it aligned after lifting it, the shop told me the same thing about mine. They couldn't align b/c 3 of the 4 ball joints were shot. Anyway, you will have to at a minimum remove the strut from the top mount. The UCA bolts are too long to remove with the strut in place. You may or may not be able to just loosen the lower strut bolt to swing it out of the way, but if you're going to loosen it, might as well just remove the strut and get it out of the way. If you plan to add a leveling kit at this time, you will definitely have to remove it because you will need to wedge it back in place with a pry bar due to the extra length of the strut assembly. I rented the ball joint tool from Advanced Auto and I think it took me and a buddy about 4 hours to do the install. Not difficult if you have worked on vehicles before, just takes a little time. I was quoted in the $800 range to have a shop do all 4 of mine. By doing it myself, I only spent around $350 and that was for Moog Upper UCA/balljoints and Moog lower ball joints, all with grease fittings. Also, the cam bolt kit is on the lowers.

 

Thanks for the response. When I looked at it I definately thought the bolts woudlnt come out with the coil there but wanted to check with everyone. The design on these new trucks just makes no sense to me. Anyways, Im going to replace the uppers right now with moog arms and joints. My lowers seem nice and tight, so I am going to keep them as is for now.