It's been driving me crazy. And it's got progressively worse. Now it's bad. Something is loose in the front end or steering. (no steering play though) I can feel it through the steering wheel; a series of clicks and small jolts through the steering wheel while turning, accelerating, braking, going over bumps, seems like any time the suspension articulates. 75K on the truck, new lower ball joints, and the most frustrating part is that I had it into the dealer and paid for a front end inspection about 2K ago and they said only thing that was wrong were the lower ball joints, and I got those replaced! Still doing it! What sort of things loosen up in our front ends typically? It's going into the dealer tomorrow, but I need your ideas since sometimes they need help finding the problem too! Thanks.


'03 150 4X4

 

CV joint going bad??

 

Stabalizer end links go bad rather quickly in these trucks... after you replace them to polyurathane they will last MUCH longer. Have you checked your steering linkage? If you look under the dash its right there check and see if its loose.

you need to get under the truck and look at ALL the bushings before you take it back to the dealer, or you might end up paying for something you dont need.

 

How tight should the stabilizer end link bolts be? I can turn the bolt pretty easily but the whole thing including the nut underneath everything spins too. Same thing with the shock mount, the whole upper housing of the shock rotates, and it doesn't take too much torque to spin it.

 

My stabalizer end links are TIGHT... i figured the tighter the better.

The top half of the shock spins i believe... might be wrong

Are the bushings still on the end links? should be 4 bushings 2 on the bottom 2 on the top

 

Hey, just thought I'd share with everyone what it was. I got my truck back from the dealer. It was the steering shaft. It was apparently loose somewhere. All they had to do was take it out, grease it, and put it back in and the issue has disappeared. We'll see if it lasts. It cost me about 70 bucks to have them fix it (their time) but I was so annoyed by the problem I really don't care at all!

 

The stab bar links should not be loose. And no, you should not be able to spin the upper shock rod. Maybe the outer dust boot, not the rod.

I'd look into new stab bar links just to be on the safe side.

 

You know a good place to order them from? Poly ones?

Just a simple unbolt the old ones, put in the new ones, and tighten? No alignment or anything else/special procedures?

 

Well son-of-a..... the problem is back. The solution lasted maybe a day, then the looseness came back progressively. I guess I need a new steering shaft. The dealer wants 170 parts alone, so it'll be like a 300+ dollar job. Is this something I could do myself? I feel like this is a really stupid thing to have go on a truck, espescially with 75kms on it.

 

what type of lift are you running? if you have lift springs and different uppers or just any lift really without a dropdown crossmember is worthless on the 97-04 trucks. the second the spindle gets lifted at all it changes the steering geometry and that problem will never go away. i had lifetime warranty parts and would replace all my steering parts every 10000 and the problem would never go away simply because of the front end design. you need a new lift, one that has a drop crossmember and leaves your tie rods in the stock andgle

 

no lift at all here. stock 4X4 height. stock everything.