Ball joints or struts or BOTH?!

virnoche · 10-10-2004, 06:56 PM

Hit a pretty good washout on the fire lanes where I hunt. Didn't think much of it....it bottmed hard and I just kept on going. After about 20 miles of loggin roads I notice some hammering coming from the front end. bum bumb ubm bumb ubmb like that.....

It gets worse and worse so I take it to the nearest garage I can fine open on a saturday morning. We go for a ride and the initial impression is ball joints. We check them and notice that the uppers have some grease coming out. OK.....they arent greasable he aint got any so we look at the struts after explaining what happend. At this point two hours into a diagnosis I can see his eyes going ching ching....we put it back together and I take the 150 mile ride home.

What do you all think? Could ball joints cause such a hammering or do you think it is the struts? I have the towing and offroad package with the Rancho.

1BadTitan · 10-10-2004, 07:13 PM

No, its the struts. That sound just like what I heard when I blew mine from the Daystar Kit.

ColoTitan · 10-11-2004, 10:44 AM

There is a simple test that you can do to tell if it is your ball joints.

Put the front of the truck in jack stands and take a large pry bar and slide it under the tire. Then pry the tire up from the ground and look at the ball joints when you are doing this to see if there is movement at the joint. If there is no movement then it is not your ball joints.

You also need to check your steering linkage to see if there is play in it or not. Put the truck on the ground and have a friend move the steering wheel side to side to see if there is movement in the linkage.

Also I think it is time to take it to a different shop because it sounds like they don’t know what they are doing.