Shop says Ball Joints?

[Helomech]

Hey Guys,

New to the forum, new to the Tahoe.

My front wheels have, what I'm assuming is NEGATIVE camber / \

I took it to the local shop to have them check if anything was bent, etc.

They told me I need new ball joints, control arm bushings. I figure that means that everything else is straight where it's supposed to be, bent where it's supposed to be, etc.

So I went out and bought upper and lower ball joints, control arm bushings, ball joint fork and press kit. (excuse to buy more tools really)

Yesterday I jacked up the front end and grabbed the driver side wheel. Figuring I would be able to tip the top end in and out towards the engine. Nothing. No play that I can find. Tried jacking up the lower control arm to see if the ball joints showed play. Still nothing.

So this is a 1995 Tahoe 4x4 LS. It sits level, so I'm assuming the PO cranked on the torsion bars to bring the front end up. I saw that the upper control arm has the bolts with the flat spot, along with the oval shaped disks (for adjusting camber?).

I do get the side to side play, as listed in the sticky, suggesting pitman arm, etc. But no play with the ball joint test.

Opinions? Should I just take it somewhere else and have them align it with the upper control arm disks? Should I drop the front end back down by reducing the turns on the torsion bars?

Thanks guys!

Robert (Helo)

 

[SunlitComet]

get a second and third opinion.

 

[Helomech]

Update:

Took it somewhere else that does collision repair. They have several racks, etc. They agreed with me. Balljoints weren't the issue. I had them take the load out of the torsion bars to drop it back down to stock up front. That took a huge amount of stress off the other joints which were sitting at severe angles.

I learned that CHEVY put in the adjustable bolts for camber, but had knock-outs in place, because, well, it was PEFECT when it left the factory. I had them knocked out so the adjusters could do their job. Got the front end aligned. Much better. No more sitting like / \ for now.

I still need to take care of the play with the pitman arm and put new tires up front. DPO has 31's on the back, 32's on the front. The rears are new. Guessing they just didn't put 31's up front because of the way the 32's were wore out from the negative camber.

Right now, it looks like a water bug up front. I was thinking that the front wheels had a different offset or something. DPO says they were bought as a set. Going to toss one of the rears up front and see what it looks like.

That is all... more to come later.