Thoughts on play in tie rods?

[Doubeleive]

@iamdub what do you think

 

[rockola1971]

Ball joints, tie rods are definitely worn, control arm bushings, sway bar bushings....at 185K they are worn out. Dont be suprised that your idler arm is gone now too even though you had replaced it. GM C and K chassis eat up idler arms especially if a new one is installed with worn ball joints and/or tie rods.

 

[Doubeleive]

pop the tie rods off and move the hub back and forth by hand, probably all that noise is the ball joints, it wont hurt the alignment if you just pop them off and them put them back on without spinning the tie rod.

 

[nick0789]

What is the preferred brand for control arms and tie rods nowadays? I know it used to be Moog but their quality has dropped off and with my experience with the pitman arm I don’t know that I want to shell out that much money for parts that will last 2 years.

ACDelco Professional? Mevotech? Or something else?

 

[91RS]

OEM (not AC/Delco) is all I will use. Nothing lasts as long.

 

[iamdub]

What is the preferred brand for control arms and tie rods nowadays? I know it used to be Moog but their quality has dropped off and with my experience with the pitman arm I don’t know that I want to shell out that much money for parts that will last 2 years.

ACDelco Professional? Mevotech? Or something else?

AC Delco Original is what your truck left the factory with and there's really nothing better for your purposes. The boxes should be blue and should have the "GM Genuine" badge. AC Delco Professional (AKA "Gold") is "good" aftermarket, and often is re-boxed Moog, but it's still not Original quality. AC Delco Advantage (AKA "Silver") is the budget-minded line to satisfy the price-driven market.

 

[iamdub]

@iamdub what do you think

There are SO many possibilities. If it were me, I'd have someone turn the wheels slowly left and right while I listened with a mechanic's stethoscope.

I actually had the idler arm and pitman arm done ~ 3 years ago, and the pitman arm redone last year thanks to some crap Moog parts. The idler arm doesn’t show any slop, but my initial impression of the tie rods were that they needed to go.

Just because a part was replaced a year or three ago doesn't rule it out. Although, I doubt that pop is either of those parts. Listen around with a mechanic's stethoscope. They're about $5 at Harbor Freight.

 

[nick0789]

Yea I try to go with OEM as much as I can afford to spend on whatever particular part is needed. The biggest exception for my are the CV axles. I priced them at the dealership however long ago and they wanted around $480 each. The guy at the parts counter told me they install the NAPA (~$100 if you wanted the thermoplastic outer boot) CV axles all the time because no one wants to 4x the cost for one that the dealership warranties anyways.

I learned my lesson with my old jeep about most replacement parts: aftermarket components just never lasted, but the parts in the Mopar boxes held up just fine.

It’s just with my personal experiences (I also had Moog ball joints on my XJ and they lasted less than a year) and some of the more recent threads I’ve seen suggest that Moog quality has taken a bit of a hit in recent years. I don’t think all of their components have been suffering equally, so there’s that.

I had gone back under there after work with a stethoscope I got from on the maintenance guys at work and it definitely is coming from the passenger front. I’m almost confident that the lower control arm ball joint is what’s toast, but I get so much residual echo translating from the sound traveling through the torsion bar as well. The bushings at the back end of the torsion bars were fine, too.

It’s going back to the shop this week. I’ll post an update on what they are able to find.

Thanks again for all the replies.

 

[exp500]

With labor cost so high, sometimes its way more effective to change it all for $400 labor than to piece at a time for $200. Especially front end work.

 

[Imlow78]

Could be a hub. I just replaced cv’s, upper and lower ball joints, outer tie rods and links along with hubs. The whole kit (also came with a new pitman arm idler link) and was $600ish from 1a Auto. I had a hub going out. Thought it was on the drivers side but it was on the passenger. Truck had 192k miles on it

Shannon