Well after taking apart the front end of my 88 TC I've decided that the ball joints are in need of replacement. I got prices from Partsouce, they have some generic ones for $32.99 each that come with a 1 year warranty. They also have premium joints that go for $99.99 each that come with a lifetime warranty. I think I'm going to go with the generic ones as I dont plan on keeping the body of this car all that long anyways. Partsource also rents a ball joint installation tool which I will need as well as a pickle fork. Now I've replaced ball joints before in class, but that was with the control off and with a press. Just wondering if any has any suggestions/tips to make things go a little smoother. Also which style spring compressor is recommended? the internal or external style? Just looking for any info from people who have replaced these with the control arms still in the car.
Just a tip to anyone changing ball joints...make sure you get ALL the adapters in the ball joint press if your renting one, woulda saved me like 4 hours last night if i had the correct adapters. Took me 9 hours to do the first one and about 3 or so to do the second one, woulda been a bit quicker but I acidently bent the dust shield up a bit and it was scraping pretty bad and i had to take the rotor off a second time just to fix it.
I've only ever replaced on ball joint on my cars (on my mustang) and on it, I just took the car to a guy up the road who does mechanic work and he changed it out for me for $20. Hell of a lot easier than trying to do it myself. On my tempo, if you have to replace the ball joint you just replace the entire lower control arm (although it's not much of a control arm) and it costs $35 for the whole thing. Weird eh
Thats the style of spring compressor I used. I originally bought it for the mustang when i 'attempted' to replace a control arm. Thanks for the input tho.
