How to Check Ball Joints (The Right Way) Tie Rods and Wheel Bearings | RAM 1500 Pick up Truck

good morning ladies and gentlemen today i'm gonna be showing you how to check your ball joints tie rods and bearings on the front end of your beautiful ram 1500 jesus murphy it's a little bit cold this morning had to break out the winter jacket mind you it is late october in canada so gotta expect it so safety first you're gonna need some nice sketchy old rusty dusty small jack stands that will probably fail and crush you just kidding a nice little box tools and some gloves for your pretty little hands so the best way to check front end components specifically ball joints on any truck that is not a solid axle front end is there needs to be weight on the control arms there needs to be weight pushing up on the control arms when you check those ball joints a lot of guys will get it wrong they just put the truck up in the air and they shake the tire a lot of guys get burned that way because you need to have weight pushing up on the control arm it's a little bit sketchy but it's the best way to see really if those ball joints are crap or not so now if you can see what you want is you want to put your sketchy ass bottle jack underneath the lower control arm [Music] all right so we are safely off the ground and we still have pressure on the lower control arm which still puts pressure on these ball joints which is going to hopefully reveal whether or not these ball joints are still good i hope they are because i don't want to fix them just another thing to point out with these ram 1500s the ball joints and tie rods are all non-greasable actually there's nothing on the truck that is greasable now they do this because apparently non-greasable ball joints and tie rods last longer than greaseable ball joint tie rods that are not greased properly and so i think they've come to the conclusion that most people do not grease their ball joints or tie rods enough therefore they fail prematurely so they've installed non-greasable ball joints what to take away from this if you do have greasable ball joints tire rods etc make sure you grease them on a regular interval because they will last longer than these babies here all right so we're out from one of the truck the jack held we didn't crush ourselves um so well first of all plasti-dip rims felt like a great idea at the time i'm so so about it right now anyways um so wheels off the ground give her a good shake side to side this will see if your tie rod has any play and we have none so that's good next you want to give her a shake up and down we feel no play that's good now next is the key part get yourself a little pry bar stick it right on the wheel and pry up now if you feel any play up and down that's the ball joint going up and down either the upper or the lower will have some play and if you do you can maybe get someone to look underneath as you pry up on the wheel to see which ball joint is moving or which component is moving so if you do think there's movement in the ball joints what you can do is you can get someone a little helper yours just to pry up on the wheel and you can look and see if there's any movement in the upper or lower ball joint and so now we can see if my beautiful girlfriend would pry up hard enough there you go chelsea you can see that the movement let's go chelsea you can see the movement there is you can see there is no movement in the ball joint and it's actually just moving both control arms up and down which is exactly what we want we have no play beautiful now if you have placed side to side or up and down and it's not the tie rod or the ball joints what you likely have there is some bearing play and bearings like tie rods and ball joints can wear and so you're going to want to go and replace that because it's just not good to have free play in the bearings on your front wheel all right there you go that's the uh simple easy way to check your front end make sure it's all good um three things to remember here number one the coldest in canada in october uh number two make sure there's weight under the lower control arm i've seen a lot of guys get burned like that it's the best way to really find out if your ball joints are junk or not and number three if you have greaseable ball joints tie rods etc make sure they're greased because if they're not they will prematurely fail it's kind of self-explanatory but just want to remind everyone and if you guys did find this video helpful make sure to leave a thumbs up maybe even think about subscribing my name is alex and i will see you on the next video

Channel: The Getty Adventures

Views: 80,716

Keywords: dodge ram 1500 pick up truck, ball joint replacement, ball joint check, dodge ram 1500 repair, ram 1500 ball joint noise, dodge ram 1500 tie rod end replacement, dodge ram 1500 wheel bearing replacement, dodge ram 1500 front end noise, dodge ram 1500 maintenance, automotive repair, pick up truck repair

Id: VASdyDnKu-E

Length: 5min 33sec (333 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020