Bad Ball Joints?

[CapitalTruck]

Got 70k on my 13 Silverado. When turning wheel when stopped or moving very slowly I get a popping noise from the front end of the truck. When more weight on front end (like nose down-hill backing up for parallel parking) it's more likely to happen. My gut tells me ball joints. Would that be a sound possibility given my miles?

[DaveH71]

Jack up the vehicle with the jack under one of the control arms. Take a pry bar and pull up on the wheel from the bottom. Next push in the top of the wheel towards the vehicle.

 

Any movement up or down with the prybar will be lower balljoints. Any movement in or out will be upper balljoints.

 

Might as well do both if just one is bad.

[CapitalTruck]

Sounds like a plan. Would a section of 2x4 work as pry bar or do you think too much play in the wood?

[cjb321]

2x4 would work, even if the wood flexes a little it'll still move the wheel enough to see if the joints are bad or not

[CapitalTruck]

Here's one for you: I took the truck in to a trusted mechanic (I almost NEVER do this, take my truck somewhere). Guy drives it, get an assistant to turn wheels while he's underneath trying to figure out which balljoint might be bad. Turns out some of the bolts on the skid plates were loose, when you turn the wheels the chassis flexes a wee bit, the skid plate was moving around a litle bit and making a noise that sounded just like a bad ball joint. I never thought about the oem skid plates (the metal ones) being helpful for structural purposes! I'm so glad I didn't do what I was about to do, order new lower control arms (to prevent from having to fool around with balljoint press, etc.) from amazon.com and put them on. I would have been 350 bucks poorer and the noise would still be there! So, add skid plates to a possible source of noise!

[DaveH71]

Congrats, easy fix.