'07 2500 Ball Joints

[james182]

How do you check to see if ball joints are needing replacement? I recently had shocks put on my truck and the shop said I needed new ball joints and replace one of the steering linkages. I pulled the wheels off today to look myself; how much play should there be? Any? How do I know for sure that it needs to be done.
According to other threads, it looks like Dynatrac & Carli are the preferred replacement parts. Is there a noticeable increase in life if greaseable ball joints are used?

 

[BILTIT]

EMF would be my choice, check some videos on youtube.

With the canadian dollar you cannot go wrong.

https://emfballjoints.com/collections/dodge-ball-joints

 

[motox40]

How do you check to see if ball joints are needing replacement? I recently had shocks put on my truck and the shop said I needed new ball joints and replace one of the steering linkages. I pulled the wheels off today to look myself; how much play should there be? Any? How do I know for sure that it needs to be done.
According to other threads, it looks like Dynatrac & Carli are the preferred replacement parts. Is there a noticeable increase in life if greaseable ball joints are used?

Put the tire on put a bar under tire and lift up. If they are shot there will be play in one or both. I'm thinking 1-2mm allowed over that fails inspect.

 

[BILTIT]

From another site-

"The tolerance for UP & DOWN movement for the lower ball joint is .090 or 90 thousands for the decimal challenged. That is measured at the joint with a dial indicator. It also includes TOTAL up & down movement added together. In reality, with the wheels hanging, gravity moves the dowmward movement to zero , so all the movement is UP anyway. Now if you are testing your ball joints visually with a pry bar under the tire you can easily be convinced that the amount of movement is excessive out at the top and bottom of the tire. Remember that 90 thousands is almost 1/10 of an inch .(at the Knuckle). Magnify say 50 thousands out to the end of a 20 inch wheel and you may see ½ to ¾ of an inch of movement and be alarmed. I have done this test many times with technicians. They test with pry bar only and condemn a ball joint. Then I have them put a dial indicator on it and find it’s LESS than ½ the limit of the spec.

The same situation for the upper ball joint except it’s .060 (60 thousands) and is in the IN/OUT direction, measured at the Joint/Knuckle. And does NOT include some of the movement you can get from the wheel bearing."


"Example: A customer comes to me with 45,000 miles and was failed a safety inspection. He's happy with the truck, tires wearing good, no complaint. I measure his ball joints and they are 25 to 30 thousands. Should I sell him ball joints ? No! I tell him to stay away from that garage. This is typical. I see this with ball joints up to around 50 thousands. They seem to accelerate play after 60 th. (up & down). I start to suggest/sell around75 th & up."

 

[GrantP]

How do you check to see if ball joints are needing replacement? I recently had shocks put on my truck and the shop said I needed new ball joints and replace one of the steering linkages. I pulled the wheels off today to look myself; how much play should there be? Any? How do I know for sure that it needs to be done.
According to other threads, it looks like Dynatrac & Carli are the preferred replacement parts. Is there a noticeable increase in life if greaseable ball joints are used?

If you really have 115k on the factory ball joints per your sig I'd say you got all the money out of them. Mine were done (and had an audible clunk) at 50k and I replaced them with Carli's. The pry bar method will show any slop in them, but the amount of slop that is tolerable is a whole different argument. As far as the steering linkage, the easiest way to check is to have someone else turn the wheel back and forth and look for any joint with slop and replace it. Again, given your mileage I wouldn't be surprised if one or more is worn out.

 

[Killer223]

up n down movement is normal, it's the side to side movement you don't want. grab top n bottom of tire n wiggle, see how much movement you have then..

 

[garyp285]

220k on mine and just replaced with AAM joints.