2000 XLS ball joints

[wrightz28]

Silly and lazy question but I was on my way to work this morning and wasn't about to lay on the aspalt and see for myself.

I would imagine with a full on SLA suspension set-up the ball joints would be greaseble? All the sudden this morning the right front developed a creak during suspension travel (thanks to Chicago city streets, there's quite a bit of suspension use). The shock jounces and rebounds like new so I know that's not it and while bouncing it the sound does seem to be from the lower control arm. I would say it's the bushings, but it comes and goes at random.

[shorod]

There have been quite a few instances of Ford's through the '90s (and maybe even into the '00s) of Ford front steering and suspension joints getting dry and squeaking. Often these squeaks seem to get more pronounced during colder days and quiet down in the warmer weather.

What I've tried in the past to narrow the source down is to use a small pick to poke a small hole in one rubber boot at a time (for example, an outer tie rod end dust boot), insert the straw from my can of spray white lithium grease, give it a squirt or two, then drive the vehicle to see if the noise changes or goes away completely. If no change, then I move to the next joint.

If you don't like the idea of poking a hole in the rubber boot and you're feeling a bit adventurous, you could instead remove the joint so that you can access the spring clip holding the rubber boot in place, then use a needle greaser to insert grease into the joint, and reassemble.

Of course if you find any joints with play, you may as well skip the lubrication step for that joint and put a replacement in your shopping cart.

-Rod

[wrightz28]

Originally Posted by shorod

Of course if you find any joints with play, you may as well skip the lubrication step for that joint and put a replacement in your shopping cart.
-Rod

Yeah, my left outter rod is taking a beating with all these darn potholes and is in the developing stages of some slop in it so I know replacement of those is in order. I further wish there were a way to fully shut the 4 wheel drive off instead of just auto as after hitting some hole or especially lifts in the road, the 4wd kicks on and off as the front tires recover.

It's definately in the lower control arm either the ball joint or bushings. I'm actually starting to lean now more to the bushings then yesterday after paying a little more attention on the way home last night. I'm heading that way because it's quiet until the suspension is almost fully loaded to max jounce, thus would tell me that bushings are stressed a bit. Additiionally it is not displaying any signs of bump steer as a failing ball joint would normally present. I'll try and give it a peak this weekend.

I'm probably going to end up throwing all new bushings at it anyway when I do the tie rods as closer once over yesterday revealed that one of the upper control arm pivot bolts (which are amamzingly too small in my opinion) apparently came loose at one point and the bolt is bent

[wrightz28]

Applied lithium grease to all bushings yesterday morning and after some driving that seems to have taken care of it.