I had my suspension/steering inspected today because I am bad at it and I don't have access to a lift, but the steering pulls to the right and feels a bit sloppy. They reported that I need a Pitman arm, upper control arms and ball joints, and lower ball joints. I want to ask you experts a few questions before moving forward.

1. I see the ball joints are press-in but all my friends with presses live 2,000 miles away. Short of buying a press, any suggestions on where I can get this done (wondering if there are any chains, for example, that offer the service)?
2. Are there any other special tools or processes I would need? I assume at least a pickle fork, which I will probably just buy.
3. The lower ball joints look like they were recently replaced, so I'm surprised they said these were bad. Whats the best way to confirm on jack stands? Is it just wiggling the wheel up/down and side to side and watching for play and if so, how much is too much?
4. Is this the time to be thinking about a lift kit or is there not really much overlap with these parts? I looked at a few kits again just now and it seems like ball joints and control arms are not heavily involved in the parts list, but perhaps they are in the installation.
5. I measured the front end a while back and found the LF was sitting a half inch lower than RF. I assumed this means the torsion bar needed to be adjusted, but could that be in the bad ball joints? If it is likely the torsion bar, I imagine that really ought to be fixed before getting an alignment, so can these be adjusted on jack stands or do I need to take it somewhere?

 

You can go to Oreilly's or Autozone and rent (free) a ball joint installation tool. Fairly easy to use and work well.

 

COStruck, if the "lower ball joints look like they were recently replaced", I would get a second inspection by a different shop. Unfortunately, there are too many shops out there that will replace parts unnecessarily, thinking about their own wallet, not the customer's. A second opinion can't hurt and you never know how it will differ from the first. But any time someone suggests to me that what looks to be a recent part is shot, I get suspicious.

 

I jack up the front wheel by the lower control arm as close to the lower ball joint as possible to keep the suspension from drooping below ride height as much as possible. It's sort of sketchy getting in there with some jacks but that's how it's done. Pry between the ground and the tire to move the knuckle up and down. Ford has .032" allowable deflection. Ford does NOT want you to check deflection like I said to. They want you moving the wheel up and down by hand so as not to exaggerate measurements. On my own ride, I replace ball joints when there is any detectable deflection since I drive on horrible roads and prefer my truck to feel tight instead of floppy.

Jack the truck up by the rear pumpkin before deciding if the front springs are causing a lean. In my experience, nobody ever came in the shop with torsion springs out of whack unless somebody touched them after they left the factory. My last truck had all of the powdercoating rust off both springs and the front neither sagged nor leaned. Also no evidence that the bars had ever been adjusted.

 

1. I measured the front end a while back and found the RF was sitting a half inch lower than LF. I assumed this means the torsion bar needed to be adjusted, but could that be in the bad ball joints? If it is likely the torsion bar, I imagine that really ought to be fixed before getting an alignment, so can these be adjusted on jack stands or do I need to take it somewhere?

I have a question about this. When you are in the cab, just the driver, does the truck level out. I only ask because we used to have a front end guy who would set his own vehicles up that way. He said it leveled when he was in the cab. ?????

On these GEN 10s, it is usually the right side that is higher. The driver and fuel tank are on the drivers' side creating 400-500# more weight on that side. We've had many on here ask why the left is lower on these trucks.

 

Well that's curious. I just reset my tire pressures, jacked the rear of the truck until the wheels were just off the ground, and found the front is now equal from side to side, measuring from the bottom of the fender to the center of the hub during and after raising the rear. LR is now reading a half inch lower than RR but maybe that's just from jacking. I think I'll just scratch this one off the list.

 

Apologies - I said it backwards (I'll edit the OP). LF was lower than RF, but it seems to no longer be true. Perhaps I had a full tank the last time I measured (is that enough to explain a half inch drop?). There's a little under half in the tank now.

 

Does the factory service manual call the Pitman arm a "steering gear sector shaft arm"?

 

These ball joints are seriously not replaceable?!? From what I've seen, this means I need a $100+ torsion bar tool on top of everything else.
Do you guys recommend replacing uppers when the lowers go bad, whether they're bad or not, as I've read elsewhere?
That worked beautifully for the lowers, which are clearly shot, but what about the uppers? When I pry up on them I can hear a clunk but I don't see any slop (the control arm moves with the spindle). If I twist the wheel side to side, I can see some rotational slop - does that matter? The up/down clunk might be coming from either the upper control arm inner bushings or the lower ball joints.

 

I was wrong. The things that appear to have been replaced are not even ball joints. Embarrassing!