How to Check if a Ball Joint is Bad properly On a Ford Truck Or Any Car

what's up guys it's your boy Falcon back again and today I'm going to show you how to check your ball joints on your Ford f-150 expedition excursion f250 or anything like that that you have with this body frame which they all use the same thing so I'm going to show you guys how to trick you lower ball joint on your Francis patience are you need to do this today we 2005 f-150 but basically everything that it's an f-150 f-250 expedition excursions they all have the same style suspension that we're going to be checking on today we're going to be checking for the lower ball joint now let me tell you what some people the way some people check it and it's not actually not that accurate and let me show you the proper way of check people like to get down here and race up the vehicle from the actual frame from right here which is okay you know if you're gonna work on it whenever we're gonna do the actual job I am gonna lift it up from there and then put the check under as a kind of resist attention but at this point and we need to check it so we do not need to do that we need to actually lift up the car from the lower control arms let me show you down here I put the jack in there and I lift it up from the lower control arm now ideally I would like to put that lower control arm a little bit more to the left but I really could not because there is no room in there because are the wheels of the jack and everything so it's not completely securing there so I am not gonna get under the vehicle this is just to check the boat door right there so now that is jacked up it doesn't have to be too high up I mean I haven't maybe an inch or two inches off of the ground you can see but all the other three wheels are on the ground but here it is so here let me show you how to check it a lot of people like to get in here and put their hands on a 12 and 6 o'clock position and wheel the tire back and forth if the ball joint is bad enough that will show you of your ball Johnny's bad but it's not if it's not that bad he hasn't gotten to that point most likely you're not gonna feel it but let me show you the way most people check it so there it is I mean try to move it there is no movement at all so if I was gonna check it that way there is I would have said no you're both very good but the proper way of checking it is you grab a pry bar and we're gonna put it down here and we're gonna lift up from the bottom now you will see so movement from the tire compress it a little bit because you know the air tire and everything but hopefully you guys can actually see the actual rain moving up and down a little bit and that's actually when you can see the bad ball joint so let me show you can you guys see that you can see when these flexes but you can also see the actual brain kind of thump up and down up and down you can you can also hear it I'm gonna put your guys in there in a second so you guys can actually see it and hear it from in there but right now I'm showing you guys from out here let me get you guys down there and show you guys the way it looks from behind it I do feel some movement um but it feels very very small but I'm hoping that you guys can see it I'm with a camera down there so here it goes I can definitely feel it I'm hoping that you guys can see it the actual ball joint going up and down I think you guys stay here - there you go guys I'm just gonna show you why we're doing it the way we're doing it and this is the kind of suspension that these vehicles have so you have destroyed and the springs pushing down on the lower control arm same thing with this one this one is big creating tension to the bottom so we only jack up the car from the actual frame this thing is you're gonna have tension going down pushing tension down on the lower ball joint which means we're not going to be able to get a proper test on this lower ball joint the only way to get a proper tension on the lower ball joint is to put the jack under the lower control arm and lifting up the car draw the control arm and when we're doing this you're actually releasing the tension from here from the from the bow drawing and putting all the tension here so by releasing the tension from the ball joint we can actually get the pry bar under the tire and check it how I just showed you but for that test you need to have the tire on it's just easier to get the pry bar down there and to push it up from the tires the way of testing it here with the tire off I have a jack stand on the beam over there I lifted it up from there I have a Jackson over there just to be safe I tipped the tire off then I put the jack here lift it up from here to release a change in from the lower ball joint in the upper ball joint but also put a pry bar going from the spring I'm to here just so I can kind of like lift up on it like here and then see if it makes a difference here let me show you don't ever you guys can see it pretty definitely nice moving and the movement is coming from down here so let me see if I can get you guys a better angle but with this remember we do have the tire off you can still check it with the tire on but this procedure doesn't work all the time but it looks like it's working now alright guys so that is how to properly test the lower ball joints on this Ford f-150 like I said make sure that you guys check it up from the actual lower control arm a not from the frame because you're not gonna get an accurate reading you might show that it's okay or if you only do the twelve and six o'clock test you might show that it's okay but as you guys saw it's actually bad and that's because we put the pry bar right under the tire itself alright guys so I really hope you found this video helpful don't forget a thumbs up subscribe heat that bill for me sure the channel I will catch you guys on my next video thank you for watching you guys have yourselves great day

Channel: Falcon's Garage

Views: 179,952

Keywords: falcons garage, how to check a ball joint, front suspension noise, how to diagnose a bad ball joint, bad ball joint sound, noisy suspension, ball joints, how to tell if your ball joint is bad, ball joint replacement, lower ball joint, squeaky ball joint relacement, front ball joint relpacement, how to tell if a ball joint is bad, ball joint check, bad ball joint, chrisfix, ford f150, f250, expedition, excursion, suspension noise, how to test, ford, ford truck, clunk, properly, loose

Id: FAgakEyIwa4

Length: 6min 58sec (418 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 30 2019