Recently it seems like my truck(2x4) wanders a lot more and it's starting to get hard to drive. The insides of my tires are cupping and i know for sure that the drivers side upper ball joint is bad because of the tilt of the wheel. Everything was tight 7k miles ago when I did the springs. Could a bad joint case it to feel like I have a sponge between the tires and the steering wheel? I'm not much of a front end guy so i don't know where to start. Thanks.

 

Check the control arm bushings carefully first.

 

Does that give a spongy feel Wanna? I did all 4 of my ball joints recently, and the tie rods are all good. Steering is tight, but feels "squishy" and I feel I'm giving too much input on the steering wheel (but no play). I turn into a corner and I will have to change the wheel after it sets in.

Sorry for the hijack

 

Don't worry about the hijack,It's all good. You symptoms are real close to what mine is doing. Mine will follow the worn parts of the road and sometimes it goes toward the edge and I can turn the wheel and get little response out of it. It has a little play in the steering but goes like a new truck on a good flat road.

 

Yes. When the bushings settle in one place the truck steers fine, but when you apply a side load they shift and things feel loose until they settle again.

 

The bushings are those rubber things between the arm and where it mounts, is that correct? The names of half the parts on my front end is still a mystery to me.

 

Yep usually black squished and nicely dry rotted

 

I found what you are talking about. How hard of a job is it to do upper and lower bushings? The springs weren't bad,is this just as simple?

 

I don't think you even need to compress the spring. On my old Mercedes, it was a pain to push them in. I think I used a c clamp, and I lubed the bushings up. These might be slightly different. Mine are definitely dry rotted!

 

Well the upper bushings aren't that bad. Once you pull the upper control arms you can press out the old bushings in the vice. Put a big socket over the outside edge of the bushing, lube up the inside casing with oil or something, then squeeze the vice closed and the bushing should pop out into the big socket. Same way to install new bushings, just the socket is on the inside.

I did all 4 of my bushings in about 20 minutes. Make sure the inside area the bushing will be sliding through is nice and clean. Take some 100-120 grit sand paper and clean it up before you put the new ones in. And make sure the new bushings get lubed on the outer casing before you install them.

The lower control arm bushing, well I haven't done mine yet so I can't help you there.

 

Well I ordered the parts to tackle this and i'll let you know how it turns out. Thanks for the help everyone.