Installed new control arms, upper and lower for both sides. All four balljoints were toast, so it was a good time to get it done.
As a bonus this is the last piece of my Moog steering/suspension refresh in the front with new Bilstein 4600 shocks. Alignment service is scheduled for Wednesday to square everything away, then I can actually start looking at ordering some new KO2 tires.
This has been about 4 months in the making, so I’m happy to have everything done. The truck steers and absorbs the roads amazingly now.
Install pics below:
The passenger side lower ball joint was bound inside the knuckle and had to be cut out. This was a horrible start to the day and added some hours of cutting/hammering/torching:
To get the rest of the balljoint out, I ended up needing to pull off the whole knuckle. You can still see the rest of the ball joint in this pic with the knuckle. After I got it laid on the bench, I used tension from a balljoint press and heat to finally coax it out. When it broke free, it shot out of the knuckle and flew across the shop.
The driver side was a breeze and I was able to remove the ball joints with a few taps on a pickle fork. I don’t have a final assembly pic, but I do have a pic of just the lower control arm as I was getting started on the upper.
This all took me about 16 hours in total lift rental time. So, I didn’t save a ton on labor but it was a fun experience as someone who hasn’t done more than brake pads/tune ups before.
My next fix is going to be a new side battery terminal bolts and an alternator/tensioner/idler/serpentine belt combo as I’m noticing some weird voltage drops when I left off the throttle from higher revs (~3k). Those parts come Tuesday, so I’m crossing my fingers it solves the problem and I don’t have a larger electrical system issue.
The charging system attention is needed anyway as my sound system gets installed in February.