? About Ball Joints

[reno]

I bought the tool to press out the ball joints seeing as how A.Z. is not replacing their broken one anytime soon. The symptoms of wearing ball joints, what are they? Truck wandering to the left\Right, wheel hop, feel like you are driving on marbles....what? All the above? My truck does SOME of these, and I believe it is from the Ball joints, I know the Right side is bad ( I can wiggle the tire back and forth from the 12 oclock and 6 oclock positions) and the driver side (Left)is solid, I am replacing All the ball joints though. Wheel bearings and rotors have already been changed and a brake job has been done. I tried to move the wheel from side to side (9 oclock and 3 oclock) and there was no movement. Just want to make sure I am not missing anything here.

TIA!!!
-=Reno=-

 

[gotmudd]

I bought the tool to press out the ball joints seeing as how A.Z. is not replacing their broken one anytime soon. The symptoms of wearing ball joints, what are they? Truck wandering to the left\Right, wheel hop, feel like you are driving on marbles....what? All the above? My truck does SOME of these, and I believe it is from the Ball joints, I know the Right side is bad ( I can wiggle the tire back and forth from the 12 oclock and 6 oclock positions) and the driver side (Left)is solid, I am replacing All the ball joints though. Wheel bearings and rotors have already been changed and a brake job has been done. I tried to move the wheel from side to side (9 oclock and 3 oclock) and there was no movement. Just want to make sure I am not missing anything here.

TIA!!!
-=Reno=-

wiggling tire from the 12 and 6 oclock p[osition is how you check wheel bearing and if you have movement at that point i'd be rechecking your wheel bearings. to check your ball joints grab your tire at 9:00 and 3:00 like you are gonna try to pick truck off of jack stand and try to move tire up and down

 

[reno]

The wheel bearings have been changed, but when I checked that was before replacing the wheel bearings. I thought side to side (9 oclock and 3 oclock) was to test the tie rods?

 

[mhughes165]

The wheel bearings have been changed, but when I checked that was before replacing the wheel bearings. I thought side to side (9 oclock and 3 oclock) was to test the tie rods?

u are correct, up and down tests wheelbearings/balljoints, side to side tests tierod

 

[canyoncritter]

put your truck on jackstands, under the beams.leave the tires on. take a 3ft section of fence post (or what ever you have around etc) and put it under the tire to you make a "lever" and pull up and and watch for balljoint movement...

that make sense? if not Ill try to get some step by step pics.

 

[reno]

put your truck on jackstands, under the beams.leave the tires on. take a 3ft section of fence post (or what ever you have around etc) and put it under the tire to you make a "lever" and pull up and and watch for balljoint movement...

that make sense? if not Ill try to get some step by step pics.

What type of movement in the ball joints should I be looking for? i.e. should the ball joints move at all? And what type of symptoms do they give while driving when they go bad? Maybe it is not my ball joints after all.