You can replace all those parts yourself for a fraction of what somebody will charge you, and your most important tool is a 2 or 3 lb hammer.

You don't even need a ball joint press to change the lower ball joints. With the Jack and a hammer, you can beat the ball joint out, and then you can beat the control arm down over the top of the new one. You do need earplugs though.

 

Well that's good to know. Those lowers are a fortune!

What about the uppers, though?

 

For uppers you replace whole control arm , its cheap and quick . A few good hammer blows separates the joint, undo nut, remove bolts.

 

Thank God for this site and you guys... the manual makes this all sound a lot worse than it really is.

 

Here's my list so far. What am I missing?

PARTS

1. Moog CK8724T Control Arm and Ball Joint Assembly (?)
2. Moog CK8722T Control Arm and Ball Joint Assembly (?)
3. MOOG K8695T Lower Ball Joint (2)
4. MOOG K8700 Pitman Arm

SPECIAL TOOLS

1. Ball joint press
2. Pitman arm puller
3. 35mm socket

Can I really get away without using the special tool for the torsion bars? I watched one video where a guy just loosened them up and then tightened them back to a paint mark on the bolt, and another one where the guy never even touched them (although that could mean he just forgot to film that part). Either way seems too easy. Is the secret removing the upper ball joint first and allowing the lower control arm to drop as an alternative way to take the tension off the torsion bar?

What do you think about these uppers? They seem fine to me up and down (but this is where I'm never sure what I'm looking for), but I'm a little concerned about the left-right slop. Both sides looked the same.

 

Pretty sure I talked myself out of trying to lift this truck. Think I'll just keep it stock.

 

Anyone have any guidance/advice for me on my upper ball joints and my shopping lists?

 

The UBJ's come with the control arm. Motorcraft UCA's have better made bushings than aftermarket and the ball joint lifespan is midpack or better. Warranty is 2 years/unlimited miles.

 

Do you agree that I should do them now, either because you see wear in my video or because it's best practice to do them when the lowers are shot?

 

First to answer your question about the torsion bars, you don't need to mess with them since you don't have to remove the lower control arms to press out the LBJ's. Even if you had to remove the LCA's, the torsion bars can be moved forward enough to get the LCA's out without touching the adjustment screws or using any special tools other than a good hammer.

Do all 4 ball joints at the same time unless you're poor, lazy and can do your own alignments. I don't see wear in the videos but allowable wear for the UBJ's is like .008" so I probably wouldn't see an out of spec joint in the video. I wrap a hand around the UBJ's and move things around to check for looseness. Sometimes you can feel things that can't be seen.

Another thing to check for is your camber plates. The truck came from the factory without adjustable camber plates. Instead of an offset drilled cam washer, they just have rectangular plates with holes drilled in them for the UCA bushing bolts. Those have to be replaced if you want to adjust camber/caster. FYI, as alignment dude I left the factory non-adjustable plates in there after replacing ball joints. Usually alignment checked out as long as I put the plates back like I found them. If it didn't, I replaced the plates as needed.

And yet another thing: Consider doing your own alignment. Now that saw blade angle finders are dirt cheap, they've added to the functionality of tried and true toe plates so that they measure camber and caster. I use Tenhulzen toe plates but these Tenhulzen ripoffs are half the price. The only thing that gets tricky is centering the steering wheel since they don't measure toe relative to the rear axle.
Vevor toe plates