Didn’t see THAT coming! Escalated Quickly! Ford Mustang Ball Joints

oh fire i felt the heat okay we're not going to indulge in any kind of introduction video today i'm i'm a little bit busy so what we have here is a 2004 ford mustang red in color this thing is very well loved this uh particular vehicle happens to be a a viewer's vehicle that they brought to us today and the plan is to replace the two front lower ball joints because they're making squeaky squeaky noises and i'll throw some pads in there while i'm at it then we'll do a wheel alignment and see if that noise goes away we can see here from the condition of the interior that this particular car is the antithesis of most commuter vehicles you'll notice that it is spotless and freshly detailed in all areas i mean i can't even find dirt in between cracks and crevices and whatnot this car is definitely loved good job my man that was loud [Music] first things first we're gonna pull this tie rod off we're gonna pull the wheel speed sensor out maybe i'll get the bolt off for the ball joint and then we can separate the ball joint from the steering knuckle and then press this ball joint in and out that was the slip of the tongue i should have said out and in because i can't press it in if it hasn't already been pressed out stop and go traffic it should be called go and stop traffic because you can't stop unless you've already gone think about it [Music] yeah this will work [Music] that makes me jump every time ooh something has occurred here that is giving me a bit of concern watch this so this ball joint is loose in the lower control arm watch it see the ball joint moving against the control arm that's not good maybe i'll make a reference mark of some sort there we go watch this you see that moving that should not be doing that i'm wondering if the splines in the ball joint are worn out or the uh or the splined area in the control arm itself is worn out um i'm gonna proceed to remove this and take it apart and uh we'll see what kind of condition it's in hopefully the new ball joint will press into this control arm without uh without any problem okay let's move around to this side and we'll get this big big nut off come here cotter pin [Music] and these are getting discarded i don't reuse them [Music] 24 millimeters yeah okay i need to support this control arm with a jack stand because there's still plenty of spring pressure here pushing down on this control arm pushing down on this ball joint and if i take this nut off it's going to go and fly away and flash that gravity and stuff's going to fly all over the place and potentially hit me in the face and that would be bad so we're just going to relieve that spring pressure slowly like so there now we're safeish okay it's safe oh the sway bar is hanging it up hang on let me take this uh sway bar link off over here i'm not going to pull it off all the way because i think there is still a decent amount of spring pressure here but i've got enough clearance to work on getting this ball joint out and that's the goal oh snap okay someone knows this is a problem because they have welded the ball joint in okay uh this has become a little bit more than what i anticipated it was going to be time to pause and gather myself i'll be right back all right so at this point this kind of changes things but it doesn't change things uh i'm not at a point of no return yet so i'm just gonna proceed we're gonna we're gonna run this thing out and we're just gonna see what kind of fitment we get out of the new unit i'm gonna try to break off these little spot welds here real fast just to see if if they're going to release or not loud noises oh yeah yeah these are uh not the most premium welds i'm not judging other welders work because i am not a welder but yeah that's that's pretty weak yeah that shouldn't have come out that easily at all so i've got the new unit here compared with the old unit they're quite similar in dimensions slightly different here at the base one appears to be greaseable the old one the new one is not greasable i find that unfortunate but let's see how these splines are going to interact with with the control arm if i can get get it past the dust boot that is let's just see how this goes [Music] uh i don't know let's move down some i'm gonna try to air hammer this thing home and we'll see how it how easily it goes in or does it go in what i don't want is a very easy install i want these things to to kind of bite into the control arm okay oh good it doesn't want to go in all right this is actually good it's not driving very easily that's still a little bit more loose than what i would like okay okay i've hit this a couple more times with a flat anvil to just drive it home and seat it so it's flush and level and i'm going to go in with the uh with the welding machine and i'm gonna strike a bead uh right here with this flange meets the control arm and i'm just gonna do a couple welds to hold this in um like i said this does fit better than the one that came out however i want to shore it up and make sure it's got some good holding power there is no danger of this thing coming out because it sandwiches the control arm in between the flange of the ball joint and the uh the steering knuckle up top but what i want to prevent here is from this thing moving around while the car is driving and i will do that with the z welder all right everybody engage your safety squints there goes nothing [Music] hot i'm in the danger zone [Music] oh it's in my shoe hot hot [Music] all right let's come around over here to this side and we'll strike a strike a beat here and maybe one over here and hopefully they'll do a better job of holding than the uh the first ones did on on the top side that we found i don't prefer to leave things to chance but uh given the circumstances of the situation this is what uh what's gonna happen here ah that's better uno mas i'd like to get one over here but i'm not going to be able to reach that so i think we're good here that's that's gonna work it's gonna hold and i can proceed now they're powering down nice and shiny factory all right back up top all we need to do is tighten up the sway bar link and it's going to pull this control arm up into the steering knuckle flashlight gravity good well i'll finish it off with the post jack or jack stand thing there it is and let's get the nut on for safety nice nice nice and it's home my wrench is stuck oh become unstuck clip now because this was a success it makes me happy we'll just put a little happy face right there everybody's happy now okay let's get this uh tie rod in and then i'll slap the brake pads on this side and we can move over to the other side oh incidentally the uh the nut for the ball joint on this side was a nylock nut and it does not have a cotter pin which is precisely why you will not see me installing a cotter pin a little more i'm trying to line up the notches in the castle knot with the through hole in the stud oh and click okay so my replacement pin is a little long so i will just cut it off some it's actually very long [Music] there well that one came out all messed up didn't it oh well to be okay it's custom alrighty let's lose this caliper real quick like the wrong way once you tighten it there oops i had a slip of the russian voice there wrong way brake pads and i'll pull this guy off just to re-lube the pins nice and purpley [Applause] good [Music] um i think i have that wrong let's try this gem okay that one fits good that means this one yeah this one goes up here yeah okay i accept this got it all right the pads on this are symmetrical meaning there's not an inside and an outside pad so we'll stick these bad boys in where they go um why why won't you fit in your home what is this there it goes got it all right okay so time to compress these pistons um i should mention that since it's a hobby of mine of selling these things to you guys on amazon i will leave a link in the description of this video where you may purchase caliper depressors on amazon and that will conclude my shameless sales pitch of the day uh oh i was wrong i was so wrong these are asymmetric pads lookie here there's a rivet here on this one and this rivet is over here on this one this is to allow for the flanges on the caliper so this is the outboard pad these are the inboard pads i was totally wrong but it's okay i have corrected the error of my ways and a couple mini duck ducks that'll seal the deal okay this side is good let's go ahead and spray off my uh my thingy prints here and we'll move on to the other side no another we're gonna do the other side in super high speed fast motion that way this video does not become boring and monotonous [Music] okay ty rod you're coming with me it scares me every time danger is there fluid in it yeah just double check um it's got no power steering really it's the pump jump it's right here and new doesn't mean good it means it's not used um start it and run it and see if the uh see if the pulley is slipping on the pump uh i didn't like that pump because there was all that uh in play shaft i didn't like that pump because there was all that in play in the shaft words okay let's go over here to the lower we'll break that one off and then we're we're gonna head back into high speed motion um it looks like this one is also welded in so i'm gonna have to break these welds out and uh probably weld well the new one in like i did the other side hmm [Music] you're giving me problems and i don't like problems that's weird it doesn't seem to want to fit like the other side did okay so rather than grinding the little forks on my tool open some i just kind of stuck it in at a weird angle i put the nut on so the little hooky part on the top kind of has something to grip to um so we're just gonna hammer this one in and let it ride i'm gonna hide over here a little bit in case this thing explodes i don't want to take shrapnel to the face pow victory okay time to loosen this nut on the uh steering sway bar link steering so the control arm falls just enough to pull that ball joint out a little more there we go get moved we have freedom and yeah look at that same same thing with this one it's loose and flopping around okay all right loud noises really gonna get stuck halfway huh i find that unacceptable fry bar more fry bar bigger pry bar [Applause] here's your smells hot all right so there's still a couple little little pieces of slag weld or whatever left over from when they just tried to tack that other other ball joint on i'm gonna hit those uh with the air chisel and see if i can't break these off they should break off fairly easily um at that point then i can i can press in the new ball joint and again try to try to weld it or whatever i don't really like it but it is what it is and the circumstances dictate what's going to happen so that's that's what we're going to do here again loud noises well fortunately for me the guy that threw down these these beads didn't uh penetrate it very deeply [Music] i'll make sure i get it a little harder than the last guy did gravity okay so that doll blade wasn't doing a good job so i got another one and uh sharpened it on the grindstone this should take a bite of these little beads here and knock them off a lot of noises [Music] pow gravity yeah that one's not going to come off of that that's in there pretty good what's up [Music] let's get this new ball joint into its home a little wider than the than the opening so i gotta kind of sneak it in there a little bit without tearing it this is a challenge that is also a challenge i chose not to accept i just removed the grease boot and i will reinstall it later okay yeah it's going in it's gonna need a weld though i believe let's put our little greasement back on just so everybody stays nice and clean and shiny yeah i know i'm a liar i've gone back on my word and i have taken this segment out of super high speed fast motion this side is presenting its own set of unique challenges independent from the ones we saw on the other side so i figured it was it was worth recording why okay we're just gonna take this little snap ring thing off and i'll put it back on in a moment this thing came apart easier than it's going back together there all right let's try to seat this joint with the impact driver one more time yeah it went in very easily it's going to need the welding yeah look at that not gonna work okay i'm gonna go ahead and get the nut on this and pull the control arm upwards because there is a there's some tension pulling on this assembly once it's in its position and that will help to seat the bottom of this uh ball joint so i can weld it so here we go hmm go in oh come on it's doing the opposite oh this is oh oh that's the old nut i want the new one there we go screwing up left and right now okay now when i let this down it's going to give a pulling force on this ball joint and that'll help me to seat it so i can weld it firmly okay one more time loud noises now you see that oh one more yeah and kick all right welding time again okay engage your safety squints [Music] oh fire i felt the heat it appears there's the brake clean on the floor and i set it on fire danger wow you guys just uh witnessed a real-life osha violation oops okay floor is not on fire this time ah that wasn't that good i didn't get much penetration on the control arm side try again and a little bit more right over here cool all right i'll let this cool off some and i'll hit uh two more beads here and here all right safety squints again [Music] anymore there we go turn the welder up some hot hot hot hots in my shoe there now it's solid okay let's go ahead and make the jump back into light speed to finish this pad snap all right well that was easy let's wash off some thingy prints and this one's going the alignment rack good to go all right [Music] all right mustang to the alignment rack with you way i'm ahead of myself i forgot to breast proof my welds there we go let's get that up in there nice okay continuing on mustang going down all right guys we're off to the alignment rack let's pump that pedal up all right guys while i'm pulling this up in the alignment rack i would like to take this opportunity to thank you guys for watching this video i hope you enjoyed this franken fix on these lower ball joints this car is going to be back in a few days for us some timing cover work it has a leak at that point i can revisit those welds and make sure that they held if they held together uh they're gonna stay if they didn't hold or if one of them broke or if things are moving and still making noise then we're gonna go back in and probably replace those control arms all that being said again like to thank all you guys for watching this video most importantly don't you guys forget to have yourselves a great day see you guys later let's get right up on that turn please right there it's good and forward powering down [Music] [Music] okay the measurements are pulled up this wheel is positive a little bit too far which means it's pointed towards the center line of the vehicle and the passenger side wheel is on the negative so that's pointing away from the center line of the vehicle and while driving that's gonna translate to a steering wheel that's off center to one side so i'm just gonna lengthen this tie rod and shorten the other one to bring them both into the proper alignment oh nice the jam nut is loose the total toe measurement for this should be positive point two zero degrees which means we're looking for positive point one zero degrees on each individual wheel and we're 0.08 i find this acceptable let's lock it down 0.04 that's a little too far let's go ahead bring that in some there we go click okay to the other side bring my lights over too so we can see there tightened up on me break that loose again there oh boy okay we went a little too far i'm gonna back this off right there right on the money tighten it up and i'll recheck the steering wheel to make sure it's level i don't know what that was and then uh click and this thing right here it's good to go looking good we're out of here see you later mustang [Applause]

Channel: Rainman Ray's Repairs

Views: 395,480

Keywords:

Id: ffm1BDtfl1M

Length: 37min 35sec (2255 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 30 2021