Do I need a ball joint press for the lowers or is this a job that can be done in a heavy duty vice?

I just sold my last vehicle besides the truck and need to get my ducks in a row before I tear the truck apart.

B

 

Well I just finished changing all upper and lower ball joints on my 97 F150 4x4 It took me just under 5 hours. Most of the time by far was on the first side I did. Only took about an hour and a half on the second one. I found that hammering out the bottoms was easier than trying to press them out. Do need a ball joint tool to press new one in though. Not a bad job thanks to the pictures and directions. Thanks Jester.

 

I put moog upper and lower balljoints on mine, I did not use a balljoint press though I beat them out with a hammer and used a jack and a socket to get them in. Im just wondering since mine has the offroad package did any of your guy trucks have hard plastic protector over the balljoint boots. Looked like it proctected the boots from getting caught and torn. Also I had trouble with getting the spindle over the lower balljoint, did anyone else have this problem. I actulay had to beat the half shaft out some to give me enough play.

 

My 97 has off road package and yes it also had the black hard plastic covers. You're probably right about protecting the boots. I had more trouble getting the hubs off since they are original and have never been removed before. I basicly followed Jesters directions when tearing mine apart. Some of the parts like lower joints were a pain to get out as they were rusted up pretty bad. Overall though the job went better than I expected. Total cost for me for all 4 joints was $132.86 From Murrays Auto. I had a 10% off coupon so that helped. Lifetime uppers and MOOG lowers with grease fittings.

 

wow i thought this job would be real hard, and thought about taking it to a shop...but after reading this i did it my self...the only problem i had is that i couldn't get the passenger side axle out of the barring...i even broke my puller trying to...so i had to unbolt it from the other end....it wasn't that much harder but i guess its a good thing i don't have to replace the baring on that side....witch i did on the other side..

all in all it was a fairly easy job that just took a few hours in the shop and saved a lot of money taking it to the shop...

thanks for the help..

 

I wanted to give this thread a bump.

I recently replaced the upper control arms, lower ball joints and idler arm on my '99 2wd with 185,000 miles. This thread definitely made the process easier. (< 5 hours)

If you have the tools and don’t want to pay $75 an hour for someone else to do it I would definitely suggest that you think about doing it yourself.

This tool was a cheap and indispensable part of the process. ~$30 on sale (ball joint press)

 

Glad to see this is still helping people out, I've since sold my 2000 for an '08, and the fact that I had done the ball joints myself somehow sold the guy on the truck, he liked the fact that I knew what I was talking about and realized the truck was "cared" for.

 

Yah.
I did this on my passenger side on Saturday.
It sucked!
Followed the walkthru up until it came to removing the axle shaft.
We tried soaking in PB and tapping it out with the hammer.
Soaking more, putting the nut on, hitting REALLY HARD, nogo
doing this for an hour. nothing. End of the shaft starting to flare, figure will grind it down. nothing.
Go rent a 3 jaw puller, attatch the impact, soak with alot of PB, hammer away hard core, drink a beer and rest, hammer more with the impact. Break the puller. Curse, yell, beat the truck, drink a few more beers.
Found a shop with a 20 ton press. Take the shaft to them to press out. Have the manager come out like he is SUPER MECHANIC saying how he is going to show us how to get that out. Watch him spend 30 minutes doing EXACTLY the same things we did. Finally put it on the press.
Leave it on the press with a puddle of WD40 in there with the press down and full pressure.
Leave it like that for over an hour.
take it out of the press and start wailing away on it with a 5# sledge. Finally breaks loose.
Wow. I have never seen the hole for the cotter pin disappear! Getting pissed cause it now has to be replaced. Crap.
goto Oriellys and have the parts guy say that they might not be able to take the core. Just tlel him that "they are just going to rebuild it anyway" then the manager say "They just melt that down, its all good" and leaving HAPPY !!
get home put it all back together in 30 minutes.

Get frickin lit up after that . let the Ford Hate bleed off with each of the beers after that

Looking back on it tho, it was a blast doing the replacement