2 wd E-150 ball joints

[regis101]

Greetings. I did a search on ball joints and more than half of the hits came up in the 4 x 4 section.
The remaining hits didn't answer my inquiry.

Searched other Ford forums also.

Working with a '98 E-150. Had 110k and now 117k. Checked the ball joints a while back and all four are bad. Doesn't seem like a good life span being a low mileage van.

I called the local Ford parts and asked if their replacements had zerk's. They said no. The cost for R&R was at 8 hun. I called a local mechanic and his price with Moog parts was just shy of 9 hun. The local FLAPS has the Moog ball joints at around 2 hun for the four. That's a bunch left over for labor quoting at 9 hun.

But it is what it is.

So, parts quality come to attention. The Ford units didn't last much more than a hundred thous miles. To me this would be about eight to ten years. But I don't know what you others have experienced with the factory parts. If they crap out at 50k then the dealership shouldn't be on my list. I found that the Ford units, as found on the net, have a one year warranty. Weak.

The Moog parts have a limited lifetime warranty and are able to be greased.

If only the stealership had serviceable ball joints, all would be well.

If any of you know of a good shop in the SF Bay Area let me know?

The search continues.

[regis101]

I'm digging around on the Ford parts site.

The Motorcraft ball joints have pic's that show zerks.

The Ford Gen part upper, only, joint had no pic but did show it to be superceded.

Now I have to track down these parts at my local dealers just to see if they have zerks.

Hopefully they do since the Ford BJ's for many of their models had OE problems and this is their fix.

I can't trust the independent shops that I know of to have the proper tools so I'll prolly have to do business with the dealer.

Tangled up in Blue

[BajaSportsmobile]

In the Desert Racing community we learned long ago that the NAPA Premium Ball Joints - the ones with the Blue rubber dust cover are by far the best. When I was racing Ford Stock Full and got parts direct from Ford, we still ran the NAPA Ball Joints.

[regis101]

Cool. Thanks for the heads up. I'll check them out. We have a NAPA store in town.

[regis101]

I pulled the trigger for the Motorcraft parts. ( slap, slap )

I had to do the footwork since the parts guy was first adamant about the OE parts. I had printed out the parts and numbers from the FMC parts site.

I think he was pizzed that he had to spend a few extra minutes at the 'pooter dealing with superceded part numbers.

Just then a familiar service writer showed up and we had an informal greeting. This helped the parts guy know I was there for business.

He had to order in the parts and I came back later that day for a looksie before commitment.
The important thing is that they do indeed have zerks. They are straight and I'll probably replace them with angled zerks if my grease gun hose doesn't fit. The lower definitely has the snap ring but the upper also came with a snap ring. I'll be curious if the body is deeper and necessitates a snap ring. Otherwise, extra parts got thrown into the box. The boots are thick and seem substantial.

I did a search on the NAPA site and ironically, their chassis brand part number is very closely matched the Motorcraft part number. Prolly a coingkidink but it something that makes one go, "Hmmm?"

Like most parts, there is one or two overseas factories that make the parts to a companies specs.
Hell, even Sam Adams is farmed out.

No worries. I'm pretty easy on this vehicle and yearly mileage is <10k.

The van goes in Monday evening.