After putting a new engine in my 98, I took it to the local front end guys for a front end alignment, knowing full well there would need to be some suspension work - after all, the truck had 185K on it before I changed out the engine. The front end shop said both lower ball joints and one upper ball joint were bad. Total cost including the alignment was $ 632.00. I declined and brought the truck home. Got online and ordered from rockauto.com; 2 lower ball joints, 2 upper control arms w/ball joints, and the camber alignment kit for $ 219 (Moog parts). I got a loaner spring compressor and ball joint press from Advance Auto and proceeded to begin work. No problems tearing the front end apart, except for the spring compressor. Trying to feed that POS up thru the spring was a nightmare because the claws hung everywhere except where I wanted it to go. Anyway, put the lowers in without incident - now ready for the upper control arms. Well, I ordered the wrong ones. Seems I ordered the ones for a 4 wheel drive and not a 2 wheel drive, so I had to reorder, which meant waiting another 3 days. Parts came in. I assembed the new control arms along with the new camber plates. Whats this! The camber plates have an eccentric hole and my OEM bolts are concentric! This won't work. So, I went to NAPA and bought the camber plates with the eccentric bolts for 52 bucks, installed them and now I'm happy. Took it to the alignment shop to get everything squared up right. Cost was 50 bucks. Total parts cost including the front end alignment was $ 321, so I saved 1/2 off the price of letting them do it. Was it worth it, yeah, of course. Now I'm an expert!

 

good job

 

heck ya just think of all the beer money u have now... go get an estimate and show the wife wat it really was .. maybe u can spend the money on toys n goodies for the truck (highly doubt it tho didnt work for me)