Horrible Birthday

[V8powerbaby]

Hey everyone. Here is the deal. I went to get my front end realigned today only to find out that my upper and lower ball joints are out and my cam kits need to be replace(what are cam kits anyways?). The place i took it to offered to do all of this for 755.69 which made me laugh so hard. Went to price the ball joints only to realize those upper ones arent cheap at all. Unfortunitly bills were paid and all this will have to wait. What a great birthday present lol. Anyone know where i can get these parts cheap?

 

['97 V8]

tell them to kiss your left nut. Classic ploy by a garage to do this. Your truck is 6 years old and im pretty sure it has the cam kits installed already. Take it to another place. If they say you need the cam kit, ask them for which side and buy the appropriatte kit. It takes 5 mins to install.

 

[V8powerbaby]

what exactly is the cam kit? Also i was reading over my Haynes Repair Manual and it say "1995 and later models The ballsjoints are non removable or serviceable if it is damaged or worn replace the control arm" is there truth in that?

 

[Doug]

If your halfway decent with a wrench you can do the ball joints yourself. I'd also check your ball joints for youself to check if they are in fact bad. As far as the cam's I think they're about 4 dollars a set. The last time I did my balljoints I just took my old ones out straightened them up and put them back in. Ball Joint replacement has been discussed at length on the forum.

 

[V8powerbaby]

i plan on doing all this myself once i get the money i dont like paying ppl money to do something i can just do myself. thanks 97 V8 and Doug for helping.

 

[410Fortune]

steer CLEAR of that shop

Bd's not so bad afterall

 

[james t]

My last set of cams boogered and needed to be replaced. The square shaped hole will get egg shaped and they wont hold an alignment anymore. Not saying the shop isnt trying to take you for a ride, but it happened to me. You can tell by looking at the cam while its still in place. You can get just the cams for like $10 or the actual cam/bolt kit which is about $40.

As for price, $750 is a decent shop price for uppers/lowers and labor. This can all be easily done by you at home if you want to do it. The ripoff comes from the fact that Ford decided to make the upper balljoints and A-arms one piece and thus you have to replace the upper arm to get a new friggin balljoint. Price all the parts at Napa and then you will see that $700 isnt bad for a shop to do the job.

 

[V8powerbaby]

Yea whats funny is this is a shop here on the military base i am stationed at lol will never take anything there to get worked on.

 

[410Fortune]

$700 will get you closer to the Dixon bro kit
my 96 has 157K miles on the front end, I have a spare 96 to pull parts from with only 83K miles on it, so that is what I have been doing thus far. I dont plan to spend a dime on this front end, instead I plan to save and replace it all with the Dixon kit and fox coilovers

$760 may not be a bad price for the shop considering the amount of work they claim it needs and the price of the parts BUT what I question is does your truck REALLY need that stuff now, recommended? maybe...neeeded? not likely

How does it drive?

 

[V8powerbaby]

they wont realign my truck with out that stuff. it drives fine but my tires up front are just now starting to look bad from the messed up alignment

 

[410Fortune]

I would get a second opinion and rotate your tires often

 

[Turdle]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/95-0...004QQitemZ140080322191QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

 

[V8powerbaby]

looks like i am off to rotate these mugs