How to check ball joints on '97 Tbird...?

[T-birdy]

Hello, can anyone here advise on how to check out the upper ball joints on a 1997 T-bird...? This is a "Sport" model with 4.6 V8 and 16" wheels, disk brakes all around.

Last week when changing oil, I noticed the rubber seals on both upper ball joints were all torn up. Could have been that way for a long time, as I don't recall ever checking them before. Car has only 70K miles on it. Drives like new. Absolutely no indication of any front end driveability problems.

I recall I could check ball joints in the classic mustangs by jacking up the wheel off the floor and looking for end-play or side-play in the ball joints. I do that with this T-bird by jacking under the lower strut mount, and see NO sloppines or play anywhere. Pry with a crowbar around the upper ball joint and cannot move anything. Everything is tight. Cannot move the wheel in any direction.

Are the ball joints still good...? Should I worry about a wheel coming off at 60 mph...? I'ts pretty obvious if one of these things broke off at highway speed it could be a life-changing event...!

Interesting thing is I also have a 1995 Bird with 90K miles on it and the seals on the ball joints are totally intact.

Thanks....!

[inafogg]

to check the bj you need to unload the joint.by jacking up under the control arm you are unloading the bottom joint but loading the upper.to unload the upper joint
jack up from the frame so the wheel hangs,then do your side to side,in/out & use a pry bar under tire to check your up/down.this all depends on the way the suspension is set up. your setup is a up/low bj with the coil spring in the middle right???


as far as ripped boot unless someone used a fork to separate the joint,the boot usually outlast the joint

[T-birdy]

Thanks, fogg...!

The upper ball joint on these T-birds appears to locate the axis of rotation around which the wheel is steered. The bj appears to not apply any vertical constraint to the wheel assembly, as it is at the center of the "V" of the wishbone which is the upper control arm. The two ends of this control arm bolt to the "shock tower" (vehicle chassis), one in front and one behind the spring, in a manner that allows the control arm to swing up and down so the bj can move up and down with spring compression (and wheel bounce), but is constrained in a fixed location in the horizontal plane.

I'm thinking the ball joint must be OK if I don't get any side-to-side movement between the bj ball and the socket in the control arm when I get the wheel up off the ground and shake it.

And that's just what I get -- absolutely no movement there, whether it's jacked up from the chassis or the lower control arm.

It appears that all the weight of the vehicle is taken by the bottom bj and control arm on which the bottom of the spring sits.