Born Free Leap'n Lions RV Club Info & Discussion Forum

Well, you can tell it's cold outside, this is my 2nd post of the morning!

Ford has had a history of ball joint failures, long before they should occur. I had to replace both upper and lower joints at 76,000 miles, they were real bad especially the lower ones. There have been cases of the front end collapsing, when the wear gets so bad the socket comes apart.
The root of the problem is the lack of grease fittings in the original factory installed units. Note the "E-450 lubrication pionts" diagram, in Bill Hemme's Jan, 1st post. Notice there are no grease fittings on the four ball joints. Demand your replacement units have fittings.
To test for wear, jack wheel slightly off the ground, making sure jack is inboard of where ball joints support wheel spindle. Then place a bar under the tire and lift up, have someone watch movement of lower ball joint while you are doing it. Or better yet remove tire and try to move spindle up and down
Other than the life safty issue, bad ball joints impact the front end alignment. Estimated cost for replacing all four ----I paid $460 (One needs a special puller) George B

On my 2002 BF E450 the ford techncian installed the required grease fittings while doing the initial front end alignment. According to the technician the holes were tapped put capped. Same tech did the initial alignment on my 2005 BF E450, suspect he added the fittings but I will have to crawl underneath to confirm.

Would you happen to know the size of those four added zerk grease fittings?

The zerk fitting that was installed for the upper ball joint is the same as the lower zerk (including the angle) fitting... I now have 6 fittings to grease!

grross,

Shouldn't you now have 8 zerks to grease rather than just 6? Four added ones for the upper and lower ball joints and the original four in the E-450 lubrication diagram shown in the post at the following URL address: http://www.bornfreervclub.org/bulletin_ ... .php?t=206

Bill...your correct my coach now has 8 zerk fittings. I thought the chassis came with the lower ball joint fittings, but my son corrected me and said it came with no ball joint grease fittings.

forgive my stupidity, but does this mean that BF added these additional grease points, or does this mean that YOU did ? Do I?

I'm trying to ascertain if I have extra places to have greased (not that I've ever had anything greased...which places do you go to that know to do that ?? Or does it mean I need to have "zerks" (whatever they are) added?

I feel a little idiotic but maybe I just don't follow as to where these things got added and to whom?

Trish,
Based on what it cost me to replace my ball joints, I would recommend you take it in to your service man and get it checked. grease fittings are REAL cheap and if they can be put in, do it. I would not let the mechanic talk me out of it either, unless of course your ball joints are not factory pre threaded to accommodate grease fittings. To answer your 2nd question, I doubt very much Born Free does anything to the ball joints or grease fittings.

I'm real pleased to see so many jump in and add to this discussion, We need more of this participation. George B

Is this something an alignment specialist should be able to do?

Lack of participation has never been one of my downfailings <smile>