Do I need a new suspension?

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luxferous

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Hey all, I am new here. so lately I have heard squeaking on the rear driver side wheel. (left bottom corner)
and noticed it squeaking hard when I get on bumpy roads or entering my parkway.

I checked the other corners by press down on them with my weight to hear them squeak. none but that left corner.
I am planning to replace that side but might replace all if needed.

it's a 2002 v6 LS.. any help would be appreciated!!
 
Probably the lower control arm. Look at the bushings on all of them (upper/lower front/back). You may find that all should be, but you may get away with just doing the one for another year or two. If you DIY, there's no real penalty to doing it a piece at a time for the rear suspension as no alignment is required. The exception is the rear toe links (bet you need them). You should do both of those at one time and get a 4-wheel alignment.
 
thanks Joe! I'm not a good mechanic at all, all I can do is pay for parts and labor :/ thanks anyway!
 
Here's my experience. My LS suffered from the same squeaking noise when I bought it. So I replaced the whole suspension system(including struts and springs), and upper control arms. But unfortunately the noise didn't go away with these replacement. Then I realized that it came from the worn out lower control arm bushing. Since I don't have any tools to compress the old bushing out as well as the new one pushed in, I just added some engine oil to the surface of bushing. That works for now, no squeaking noise at all.

I also bought some new bushing but still don't have time to replace them.
 
I had the same squeaking noise

I replaced both lower and upper control arms.
The funny part was I went a few years on mines before I replaced them and it had my rear end off by 3 degrees For all the parts I paid 600 bucks

Lower rear came from rock auto

Upper rear from Tasca she quiet as a church mouse on the rear
 
got the front part fixed.
left front hub changed, brake pads for bot front sides, new calipers for both sides, and struts for both sides. and resurfaced rotor! :)

all for about 900 parts and labor.
unfortunately i need to get new tires and fix the squeaking back side.
 
Just to be a pest about this, they are not "struts." The LS has a good suspension, with upper control arms. It's coil-over-shock. Yes, it looks like a strut, and yes the parts places all call them struts. Maybe I'm too old fashioned. To me a strut suspension is a different beast.
 
yeah me too. they had looked like suspensions to me but I wasn't for sure.
the mechanics called them struts so i went with it

struts are better than the stock ones on LS?
 
luxferous said:
...struts are better than the stock ones on LS?
Click to expand...

I don't think that I understand the question.
The LS is a coil-over-shock suspension.
The stock shocks are very good. Nothing in the aftermarket seems to be as good. Unfortunately, the stock shocks are no longer available.
There is no way to convert the LS suspension to a strut type suspension, nor would you want to. Strut suspensions don't have as tight of control over wheel position and movement.
 
oh alright I get what you mean now. Yeah what I have now are smooth and comfortable, though I think the ball and joint needs to be replaced. idk if that is lart of the hub? because there are thuds and bumps when the wheels go over bumps on roads.

the mechanic even showed me the ball and joint breaking. :( it sucks how I got the car as is.

nice car for sure but, wasn't taken care of by previous owners
 
Yeah, you want to take care of any identified ball joint problems ASAP, before a wheel falls off.

There is only one ball joint on each side on the rear. It's part of the upper control arm, so all you have to do is to replace that.

There are two on each side on the front. One is part of the upper control arm, and not too expensive to replace. The lower ball joint is part of the knuckle, a much more expensive assembly. Ford strongly advises against just pressing a new one in, since the aluminum can crack if they aren't careful and don't have experience working with aluminum. That said, some have done so without issue.
 
I agree on calling things by proper names. A 'strut' is a manufacturing expedience. It's cheaper and simpler at the loss of some of the adjustability that a double-arm design provides.

KS
 
hi guys,

since there are tons of thread on ball joints, and this is the most recent, I thought using this thread to ask my question would be a good move.

i too need ball joints, and am faced with deciding to buy new spindles. else I need to get the shop the car got towed to do the press-out and press-in

if I wanted to buy a OEM spindles is tasca or fivestar still best places to order from? (I think I read a while back our guy retired from fivestar.)

do jag parts work for the spindles/knuckles.

i also know Ed of Euromarque is recommended too (it looks like they don't have the whole spindle though..?)

thanks!
 
jokken said:
hi guys,

since there are tons of thread on ball joints, and this is the most recent, I thought using this thread to ask my question would be a good move.

i too need ball joints, and am faced with deciding to buy new spindles. else I need to get the shop the car got towed to do the press-out and press-in

if I wanted to buy a OEM spindles is tasca or fivestar still best places to order from? (I think I read a while back our guy retired from fivestar.)

do jag parts work for the spindles/knuckles.

i also know Ed of Euromarque is recommended too (it looks like they don't have the whole spindle though..?)

thanks!
Click to expand...
I'm not sure why it quoted. Anyway, it's best to get spindles for the car itself instead of a different model. That's my opinion. Reason being, it's more likely going to fit and be reliable, depending on the type of brand you got. If you need ball and joints, I am going to replace mine with duralast (I think that's the brand). It's the only kind they have where I live.

Is your upper control arm badly damaged? You can turn the wheel left to check the driver side, and behind the wheel on top, you should see if it has some rubberish ring on it. If it's broken you'll hear it when you turn the wheel on side to the other.

Maybe some experts here will tell you accurate info. Good luck!!
 
Tasca or rockauto is where I purchased my front spindles from, just make sure your getting the right ones, cause they have a 16mm and a 14mm
Balljoint stud.

The replaceing them is easy, the only problem that I ran into was my driver side hub was stuck to the spindle I was able to get it out but the hub bolt holes was damaged, so to not cross thread I just replaced the hub.

If you do it yourself make sure all your bolts get blue lock tight and torqued to spec.


Drive for a few days and recheck your lower balljoint nut, cause the have a tendency to back down.
 
thanks for the replies. we were able to use the old spindles. I took each spindle to a shop that I knew had a press and knew how to use it. In the end they didn't use their press, they used their kit which is like what people here have already recommended
something like this:
photo_resize.jpg




they actually had a 12 piece set but needed to borrow a 24 piece set from AdvancedAuto because their set didn't have 1 specific sized adapter (tube/ring).

of course they had an impact gun to turn the tool (c clamp looking thing)

the setup looked like this but with the spindle in a large vice (this pic is not from an LS)
P1010167.jpg


with 1 adapter (tube/ring) on each side
the one tube pressed the ball joint's lip, the other tube allowed clearance for the ball joint's stud to come out, and thru the hole in the end of the tool as it pressed in.


11523a.jpg

lip is at the bottom on this pic and the stud at the top.

this isn't mine but a pic I stole from good images (it is from a Jag forum actually)

50541d1376130597-lower-ball-joints-20130810_153107.jpg
 
Last edited:
jokken said:
thanks for the replies. we were able to use the old spindles. I took each spindle to a shop that I knew had a press and knew how to use it. In the end they didn't use thier press, they used their kit which is like what people here have already recommended
something like this:
View attachment 828487878



they actually had a 12 piece set but needed to borrow a 24 piece set from AdvancedAuto because their set didn't have 1 specific sized adapter (tube/ring).

of course they had an impact gun to turn the tool (c clamp looking thing)

the setup looked like this but with the spindle in a large vice (this pic is not from an LS)
View attachment 828487879

with 1 adapter (tube/ring) on each side
the one tube pressed the ball joint's lip, the other tube allowed clearance for the ball joint's stud to come out, and thru the hole in the end of the tool as it pressed in.


11523a.jpg

lip is at the bottom on this pic and the stud at the top.

this isn't mine but a pic I stole from good images (it is from a Jag forum actually)

View attachment 828487880
Click to expand...
Dis you also replace the bearing in lower control arm?
 
do you mean the wheel bearings that are in this spindle too? no, we almost had to replace them though, but fortunately we were able to remove them and hopefully will reinstall them. (they aren't too old but were oxidized in pretty good)

the bushings in the lower control arm probably should be replaced now too, but I'm putting that off hoping I can do them myself (without taking it totally apart again)
 
Last edited:
for removal of the old ball joints they cut off the stud almost all the way and used an air hammer to press it out. it took a few minutes of air hammering
seems like there could have been a more graceful way of doing this with the press tool kit.

air-hammer.jpg
 
Glad to see it all worked out for you. I still have my old front spindles, and rear lower control arms, when I get the time I'm planing on pressing new balljoints in the spindles that way I always have one ready to go if the ones on the car goes bad. Just swap them out

Buy the balljoints rent the tool on a weekend and get the job done for the next time.
 
hi guys, new ball joints have been workin well. I've been driving gingerly on them for 2 weeks. I'd like to check the torque on them this weekend to make sure they did not loosen up at all. the moog ball joint directions said 110 ft-lbs so that is what we did.

i have questions about the right way to check the torque, please advise :)

1. I assume if I can manage it I can check it with the wheel still on?
2. can i check it with the car on the ground or should I jack it off the ground to take the load off the ball joint
3. should I also jack up the lower control arm to take the spring, etc load off the ball joint?

thanks
 
I checked mines with the wheels off the ground, then I jacked up the control arm to take the spring tension off.
 
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