What are the symptoms of a bad lower ball joint on a 4X4?? I have a bad upper and getting ready to start on replacing both of those and want to inspect the lowers really good while it's apart.

I haven't found anything to give me any indications yet but I found the upper while looking for something else. I could shake the wheel and the spindle would rattle around in the upper control arm. Movement was probably about 1/8". Made a great clunking sound going over sharp bumps and stuff!!!

 

One symptom I had on my truck was when traveling at highway speeds and trying to stop the left front wheel would shimmy as if I had a bad brake rotor. I also noticed when at highway speeds, when I hit a bump in the road the truck would get real squrrielly for a few seconds and then calm down.

 

its best to replace all 4 ball joints but you can jack the truck up get the wheel off the ground have a friend lift up and down on the wheel with a crow bar while you watch the ball joints if you see any play it needs replaced

 

I was told when I had my new tires put on yesterday that the lower ball joints had some play in them. Today when I was out driving at highway speeds I had a bad vibration I didn't have before. So I don't know if the new tires are out of balance or its the ball joints and the new tires made me feel it since I never noticed it with the old tires. I'll be making a stop to the dealership to have them rebalance the tires in the morning. Then I'll try the highway speeds on into wrok after that to see if the vibration is still there.