Bad Ball Joints? How to tell?
 

I bought some nice Goodyear Assurance tires today and wanted them to do a wheel alignment. They said that both lower ball joints were bad so they need replaced before the alignment. How can I tell if they are bad? I don't drive it hard and I've never noticed any sort of problem.

If I need them, they're about $57 from subaruparts.com. Not to bad considering the Goodyear store wants $75 each and another $75 to install each for a nice total of about $300 plus the alignment.

This looks like a do it yourself job. Is it?

Once it is adequately jacked up and the frt wheels removed there is only three nuts/bolts and one nut to remove, per side. A couple good whacks with a BFH and you're ready to install the new joint.

Yes it can be done yourself. A search will turn up several instructions. There's a couple different techniques and it shouldn't take more than an hour.

The easiest ball joints I've ever worked with :D

Remove the pinch bolt on the steering knuckle first, then use a block of wood and the BFH that Beav mentioned to knock the control arm down. This will pull the joint out of the knuckle. Once the arm is down it is 3 easy nuts/bolts and away you go :D:D

Forego the wood block. The ball joint stud is tapered, as is the hole it passes through. A couple good whacks on the side of the steering knuckle (the part the hole resides in) will break the interference fit of the tapered stud/hole and release the joint.

p.s. "a good whack" is best delivered by a 3# hammer with as much force as you can muster while keeping control of its landing area.

EDIT: ooops... it has been so long since I've had to separate the stud end that I forget whether or not it uses a pinch bolt or tapered stud. If it uses a pinch bolt proceed with the wood block, and my apologies.

Make sure to check them first. Alot of those stores will tell you stuff like that just to get out of doing the free alignment. ;)

Driver's side ball joint just completed. Not too bad. The stud is not tapered. Loosen the pinch bolt, then a wooden block and the BFH knock it loose. Thanks for the advice everyone. After that you can remove the 3 mounting bolts and pull out the bad boy.

Just one question.....
How do you know if the stud on the new one is in far enough? (THis should get some interesting responses). Should the rubber seal be smashed?

Look into the hole where the pinchbolt goes, and make sure it's lined up before you install and tighten the bolt.
I use Blue Locktight on these bolts, as they are some of the most important bolts on the car!!!

Just completed and answered my own question. You have to completely remove the pinch bolt to get the ball joint stud out. You can't just loosen the bolt. There's a groove all the way around on the stud that provides clearance for the pinch bolt. The bolt basically locks the stud in.

When you put in the new one, if the stud isn't in the right depth, you can't get the pinch bolt back in. The bolt has to line up with that groove.

Maybe I should write up a little "How-to"

Or maybe I'm just a rookie.....you all can decide.

If someone want a how-to, I'll write one. No pictures.
Bill

By the way...the Goodyear store was right. Both ball joints had a lot of play in them. They wanted $340 to replace them both. It cost me $115 from 1stsubaruparts.com and about 2 hours (with breaks).

Sure, do it. You should submit it on the SVXipedia.

I just submitted it to SVXipedia.

I still have to submit the writeup on cleaning the throttle body, IAC & aux air control valve. I have a great writeup with photos, it's just too big of a file.

If you still have the separate photos just select how many photos there are, enter their paths on the screen (like attaching files to posts here) then copy/paste the text indicating where the photos go. I'll take care of the rest.

I just submitted the Throttle Body and IAC cleaning files. I pasted the text into your text submittal box and attached 11 photos. It appears to have transferred. Let me know if you received it and have any problems with it.

Thanks a bunch for the submissions. I've got one of the 2 submissions converted until something happened to my ISP connection (the SVXipedia is currently down). It may have to wait until I get home from work before I can get everything running again.

OK, the SVXipedia is running again. I had my GF restart the router.