2008 Dodge Ram 1500 Truck Crew Cab Front 8 Piece Steering & Suspension Kit TRQ PSA58868

Okay, friends. To get started on this vehicle, the first thing we wanna talk about is safety. You want hand and eye protection. Secondly, you wanna make sure that you raise and support the vehicle by the frame so the suspension's hanging. Next, let's remove our lug nuts. Remove your wheel. Now that we have the wheel off, we have a nice, clear view of our tie rod ends. Just a quick note, whenever I'm replacing tire rod ends, I usually like to do them as a pair. With that said, let's break free our jam nut.

Here we are. Let's get our locking cotter pin out of here. There we are. Let's go ahead and remove this nut. Put that back on a couple of threads. The next thing we're gonna do is separate the tie rod end from the knuckle itself. You can do that with a couple loving bonks with a hammer. Unscrew the outer tie rod end and make sure you count the threads as you come off, one, two, three, and so on. Twenty-two for me. Time to put on the outer tie rod end. Make sure you put on as many turns as you did to remove the original, one, two, three, and so on. That should line up perfectly. If it doesn't, you might've moved this a little bit or you might be off. Snug this up, torque this to 45 foot-pounds. Now we need to take a look and make sure that the slotted area of our nut lines up with the hole in the tie rod stud. If it doesn't, you need to continue tightening until the first one does. Go ahead and peen that over.

Now it's gonna be time to tighten our jam nut. To do that, you wanna hold your tie rod so it can't spin because you don't wanna damage the ball and socket area. Now let's go ahead and snug this. There we go. If your tire rod's crooked, just make sure you straighten it out so it's level with the ground. Go ahead and put the wheel back up on here. We're gonna start all of our lug nuts and then we'll torque them to 130 foot-pounds.

Okay, friends, to get started on this vehicle, the first thing we wanna talk about is safety. You want hand and eye protection. Secondly, you wanna make sure that you raise and support the vehicle by the frame so the suspension is hanging. Next, let's remove our lug nuts. Remove your wheel. Now that we have the wheel off, we have a nice, clear view of our tie rod ends. Just a quick note, whenever I'm replacing tie rod ends, I usually like to do them as a pair. With that said, let's break free our jam nut. Here, we are.

Let's get our locking cotter pin out of here. Here we are. Let's go ahead and remove this nut. Put that back on a couple of threads. The next thing we're gonna do is separate the tie rod end from the knuckle itself. You can do that with a couple loving bonks, with a hammer. Unscrew the outer tie rod end and make sure you count the threads as you come off, 1, 2, 3 and so on. 22 for me. The next thing we need to do is remove our jam nut from our inner tie rod end. I'm gonna hold that inner tie rod end with some locking pliers.

Next, we're gonna remove the clamp that holds our Bellows boot to the inner tie rod end. So now if you follow your boot towards the inside where your power steering rack is, you're gonna find that there's a little lip right here. You're gonna wanna just kind of have a nice pry bar like this and a hammer, and we're gonna break that free. It's not reusable, so you're gonna have to replace it with something different. Now, let's go ahead and grab onto that boot. Give it a nice twist to break it free. And we're gonna try to pull it off of the inner tie rod end. There it is.

Double check your boot, make sure it's not worn or torn in any way. If it is, you'd wanna replace it, this one looks great. Now we have to unscrew our inner tie rod end from the rack itself. To do that, you can use a tool that looks like this. It's just gonna go around the bobble down here. Or of course you can use pliers or even a wrench. Whatever you need to do, unscrew it. Okay let's get this off of here. Now that that's off, I always like to clean up the mess that might be around the area, clean up the threads and then of course around it. Time to start in our new inner tie rod end. I like to use a little bit of threadlocker, but we'll call it your prerogative.

Once you have it bottomed out, just make sure you go ahead and give it a little snug. Your inner tie rod end came with some grease. You're gonna use that right along this area right here and then a little bit on the inner tie rod and shaft. I like to use a nice brush I don't like to get it on my hands. Just pack it right in there and make sure it's nice and lubricated and then some right up along this groove right there. That's where the boot's gonna sit. This is gonna help your alignment be professional. The next thing we need to do is prepare our boot so it can be mounted. Take a nice wire tie, I'm just gonna start right on here. Here we are, not too tight. Do the same on the other side, if you're not reusing your clamp, take your boot. We're gonna slide it right on there. Slide it over the rack so you're sure it's nice and secure. That feels good.

We're gonna slide this forward end so it goes over that little lip. You can see it right there, put it right up against it. Perfect. Make sure your boot's sitting perfectly on the rack. And now we're going to snug everything up. Trim from off the excess. Next, we're gonna put a little bit of grease or copper, never seize on the threaded area here. Go ahead and put on your jam nut, put it halfway down the threaded area. Time to put on the outer tie rod end. Make sure you put on as many turns as you did to remove the original 1, 2, 3, and so on. That should line up perfectly. If it doesn't you might've moved this a little bit, or you might be off. Snug this up, torque this to 45 foot-pounds.

Now we need to take a look and make sure that the slotted area of our nut lines up with the hole in the tie rod stud, if it doesn't, you need to continue tightening until the first one does. Go ahead and pin that over. Now, it's gonna be time to tighten our jam nut. To do that, you wanna hold your tie rod so it can't spin because you don't wanna damage the ball and socket area. Now let's go ahead and snug this. There we go. If your tie rods crooked, just make sure you straighten it out so it's level with the ground. Go ahead and put the wheel back up on here. We're gonna start all of our lug nuts and then we'll torque them to 130 foot-pounds. Torqued.

Okay, friends. One of the first things we need to do is safely raise and support the vehicle so that the suspension is hanging. The best way to do that is right underneath the frame. Once you've done that, remove all five lug nuts and remove the wheel. Now, I'm going to take a nice pry bar and I'm going to come in between the caliper and the rotor itself, and just try to push in the pistons a tiny bit. Perfect. Now, we're going to take the caliper off. We want to make sure we don't put a tug on our flex hose when the knuckle comes down. It's good to have something hanging off the frame so you can hang the caliper once it's off. There we are. And set that so it's going to be safe. Let's get the rotor off of here. We're gonna take off our tie rod end nut here. So, just go ahead and bend out that little clip. Remove the nut. I like to leave it on a couple threads. Now, we're going to bonk right along here to separate the tie rod from the knuckle. Set this up here. Next, we're gonna use another cord and we're going to go around the knuckle, just like this. And then I'm gonna bring it over to the frame. Perfect. Next, we need to remove this nut right here. You're gonna notice there's a little bit of a locking neoprene in there. If you need to heat it up a little bit, it would probably be helpful. We're going to remove this and then we'll separate the two.

Get that nut, put on just a couple threads. Now, we're going to bonk on the knuckle a little bit to try to separate the two. Just keep in mind that this will try to pull away. Okay. Let's carefully move the knuckle away. Let's go ahead and remove our lower ball joint nut. Back on just a couple threads here. The next thing we need to do is bonk right here on the knuckle to try to cause some vibration to break it free from the ball joint itself. Just keep in mind that once this breaks free, the safety nut's gonna keep it from falling. But the top part might kind of swing a little bit. Get our safety cord off of there. Take off the safety nut. Let's get this out of here. The next thing we need to do is peen over these edges so they're facing in towards the ball joint. They're kind of like a little lock.

So, now it's gonna be time to press out our lower ball joint. To do that, you're gonna need this tool right here with a couple little cups. Set the cup with it so that the ball joint stud can come down through. Take your ball joint tool, put it just like this with the stud going through it, and then come along the top with the pressing unit itself. So, now we're going to go ahead and press this down. If the ball joint press isn't working, what you could try doing is using your hammer. Just give it a couple loving bonks on the top, try to break it free. All right. So, I can start to see it move here, so I'm just going to continue on.

Now, it's gonna be time to install our brand new ball joint. Something that I like to point out is this area of the boot right there. That needs to be facing towards the inward portion of your vehicle. So, of course, I'm gonna turn this just like that. And this is gonna press in from the bottom up, something to think about when you're pressing it up because you don't want to damage the boot with your cup that you're gonna use. So, I just find one that fits right up and around the outside. Then I find another one that goes just like this, lets the stud come through. Set it just like that. Now, we're going to need something that goes along the top so that the ball joint can press up and through. That way there, we can put on our lock clip. Okay. I got this nice and tight. We've got this sitting as level as possible with the control arm. You want to make sure the ball joints isn't sitting off-kilter. Tighten this until this area of the ball joint hits right up against the control arm. As you continue going up, make sure that it's continuing to go straight. If it's going cockeyed, you need to straighten it out. So, right there I can hear an audible difference in the amount of pressure that's going on there. So, I'm just going to take a peek. It looks as though it's sitting pressed against the whole control arm all the way around. Let's remove our tools and inspect our job. Make sure that it's seated all the way around. Let's continue on by putting on our lock clip. Use these little pliers here. Start them in there. There we are. Just make sure it's sitting in the groove all the way around, that's what locks this ball joint in. Looks amazing.

All right. So, now, it's gonna be time to get our knuckle back up on here. Line up your axle with the splines of the wheel bearing. Let's get that lower ball joint stud in there. Hold up the knuckle, put your washer and the nut on there. Line up your ball joint stud with the knuckle hole. I'm gonna use a pry bar to pull it down. Start that nut on there. Let's go ahead and snug this up. The lower ball joint nut as well. Torque your upper ball joint nut to 40 foot-pounds. Now, we're going to torque this to 38 foot-pounds. Once you've done that, you want to make sure that the slots on the ball joint nut line up with the hole on the ball joint stud itself. If it's not, you need to continue tightening until it is. Take your locking cotter pin, slide it right through, and then peen it over. Let's get the tie rod stud back in here, put on our nut. Snug it up. Let's go ahead and torque this to 45 foot-pounds. Once again, we need to continue on to make sure that it's lined up. Looks like it could go a little further. Cotter pin in there. Make sure you peen it over.

Now, you'd want to clean up the mating surface on your wheel bearing so that it looks more like this. You can use a brush or anything that's gonna clean up any of the rust. Make sure you clean up the backside of your rotor where the mating surface is. Let's apply a little bit of copper never-seize on the bearings. Go ahead and put your rotor up on there. Now, we're going to grab the caliper, start it on there as well. Let's go ahead and start the caliper on there. There we are. Start in both of your bolts. It's a good idea to use a little bit of threadlocker on these. Okay. Let's bottom these out. Now, let's torque these to 138 foot-pounds. Now, it's going to be time to get the wheel up on here. We're gonna snug up the lug nuts and we'll torque it to 130 foot-pounds.

Torqued. We're just going to go ahead and pump up that brake pedal. That feels good. Okay. So, now, at this point, what you want to do is take it for a road test and, of course, get it down to your local alignment shop.

Okay, friends. One of the first things we need to do is safely raise and support the vehicle so that the suspension is hanging. The best way to do that is right underneath the frame. Once you've done that, remove all five lug nuts and remove the wheel. We're gonna go around the knuckle just like this, and then I'm gonna bring it over to the frame. Perfect. Next, we need to remove this nut right here, you're gonna notice there's a little bit of a locking neoprene in there. If you need to heat it up a little bit it probably be helpful. We're gonna remove this and then we'll separate the two. That nut put on just a couple of threads. Now we're gonna bonk on the knuckle a little bit, try to separate the two. Just keep in mind that this will try to pull away. Okay. Let's carefully move the knuckles away.

The next thing we need to do to get the upper control arm off is to remove the two mounting bolts. There's one here and there's one on the forward side of the control arm as well. Here we are. Alright, let's leave that just like that and do the forward one. Here we are. There it is friends. Now it's gonna be time to get our brand new control arm in here. Let's go ahead and start pulling the bolts in. Here we are. A little bit of threadlocker. Let's start on our nuts here. The next thing we need to do is lift up our control arm, I like to use a nice pry bar. Go right in between like this so that the control arms level with the way it would look if the vehicle is on the ground. Torque this to 130 foot-pounds. Do the same to the forward bolt, line up your ball joint stud with the knuckle hole, and use a pry bar to pull it down. Start that knot on there. Let's go and snug this up. The lower ball joint nut as well. Torque your upper ball joint nut to 40 foot-pounds. Now it's gonna be time to get the wheel up on here. We're gonna snug up the lug nuts and we'll torque it to 130 foot-pounds. Torqued.