Ford F150 Lincoln Mark LT Front 12 Piece Steering & Suspension Kit DIY Solutions SUS02298

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Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

In this video, we're going to show you how to replace the front struts. This is a 2005 Ford F-150. It's exactly the same for any 2004, the new body style, through the 2008, and probably the same for 2009 and up. We show you on the driver's side, but the passenger's side is the same procedure and we do recommend you replace them in pairs. You'll need new front struts from www.1aauto.com, sockets from 8mm up to 30mm, a pipe or a breaker bar for leverage, a 12mm 12-point socket, 18mm and 21mm wrenches, pliers, pry bar, flat blade screwdriver, torque wrench, hammer and jack and jack stands.

Start off by prying off the hubcap. Then loosen up these lug nuts using a 21mm socket and ratchet and a piece of pipe for some extra leverage. Then raise the vehicle, and remove them the rest of the way and take the tire off. You want to life the whole front of the car up and put it on jack stands with both wheels off the ground. Now pull the wheel off. Now turn the wheel, and remove this 21mm nut at the top of your outer tire rod. Then once you remove it, you want to just put it back on just a couple threads.

Now hammer the knuckle until the outer tire rod drops down. Now you can remove that nut, and just set your outer tire rod off to the side. Underneath your control arm, on the bottom of the sway bar link you want to just remove that nut. You can try doing it with an 18mm ratchet, but most likely it's going to start spinning, and the solution for that is an 18mm wrench and an 8mm socket and ratchet. Then you can just remove that nut. You want to spray the bolt that holds the bottom of your strut, and then a 30mm socket. I'm using a breaker bar and a piece of pipe and break that free. Then once you get it going, the bolt will most likely spin. Hold the bolt end with the 27mm socket and take that nut off.

Then spray these 15mm nuts at the top of the strut with some penetrating fluid, and remove two of them all the way. The other one, you just want to leave on a few threads. Using a pair of pliers, remove this cap. Then loosen up and remove that 13mm nut. Then you want to just put it back on just a few threads. Tap it with a hammer and make sure it goes through. Then remove the nut the rest of the way. On the other end of the axle, there's a series of 12mm bolts. You just need to use a 12mm 12-point socket, and then a pry bar to hold the wheel. Just loosen those up.

You can also just have a helper get in the vehicle, and hold the brakes to hold the axle in place. When you remove that last one, just push the axle down to the side. Now spray this 21mm nut up here on the bottom of your upper control arm. Then remove that nut, and put it back on just a few threads. Now with the nut back on a few threads, just hammer the wheel knuckle until the upper control arm loosens up. Now just lift up on the wheel knuckle, and then remove that nut. Now you can just set the wheel knuckle off to the side carefully.

You don't want it to strain those brake hoses. Then just tap the axle and pull it out of the wheel knuckle. You want to feed the axle towards the left side towards the front of the vehicle. Then just angle it down, and pull it down and out. Now, we're just going to check up underneath the control arm a little bit. The vehicle is still supported on the jack stands under the frame. Remove the bolt from the bottom of the strut, and you can see the struts in there are still loose. Make sure the nuts on the top of the strut are removed. Pry the strut out.

Up top is the old strut. Below it is the new one from 1A Auto. You can see they're identical and they'll fit exactly the same. Feed your strut up into place. Push those studs through. Then just replace those nuts at the top to just hold it. You don't need to tighten them up right now. You're just putting them there to hold it in place. Then pry the bottom of the strut back into the lower control arm. Then push that bolt back through. You just make sure it's all the way in. Then replace the nut and tighten it up preliminarily. We'll just fast-forward as Mike goes back over those 15mm nuts making sure they're tightened. Then you can remove the jack.

Feed your axle back into place. You want to feed it back in the same way that you pulled it out. Then just angle it back down into the hub and push it in. Now you can take your upper control arm and push it back into the wheel knuckle. Once you push it through, just put that 21mm nut on there to hold it in place. Line up the axle and replace those 12mm bolts. We'll fast-forward as Mike does this. Now tighten each of those to 60 foot-pounds in a crossing pattern. You can see we torqued that one. Then you want to turn the wheel until you get the one on the opposite side. Then torque that one. You want to just repeat this process with each of them. Now replace this 13mm nut and torque it to 20 foot-pounds. Then replace that cap and just tap it into place.

If any of the lines on the back came undone, make sure you push them back in and re-clip them. Then push your outer tire rod up to the wheel knuckle and replace the nut. Then torque that to 111 foot-pounds. Now just tighten up this bolt on your upper control arm. If the stud spins, use a 10mm socket and ratchet. Then you want to torque this to 111 foot-pounds. Then tighten up the nut on the bottom of your sway bar link. Jack up underneath the lower control arm to simulate a wheel being in place. Torque the lower strut bolt to 150 foot-pounds.

Now we'll fast-forward as Mike replaces the wheel and replaces the lug nuts and tightens them preliminarily. Then he lowers the vehicle and tightens them the rest of the way. Then torque each of them in a crossing pattern to 120 foot-pounds. Then just replace your hubcap and you're all set.

We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.

Okay friends, to get started on this job, the first thing that we need to talk about is safety. You want hand protection and eye protection at all times. With that said, safely raise and support your vehicle so you have your front wheel off the ground. We're gonna remove this center cover and then we're gonna remove the lug nuts as well.

Get your wheel off of here. We need to get this cotter pin off of the outer tie rod end now, and we'll need to get the nut off of there. Use your 21-millimeter socket and remove your nut. I just put this back on there, just a couple threads because now we're gonna use our hammer, and we're gonna hit right along here on the knuckle, being careful not to damage the tie rod. Let's get this off of there. Pull this down.

Next, we need to get the mounting nuts off of the top of the strut area here. There's gonna be three of them. There's gonna be two right here where you can see, and the other one is gonna be located further in. You definitely don't wanna touch this center nut in any way. So I'm just gonna use my 15-millimeter wrench, because it's the easiest thing to get into this space. Put it right up on here, and then, of course, a nice rubber mallet, because I don't want to damage my tool.

I'll get this nice and loose. Do the same to the other two, and then we'll remove the nuts fully. As you can see the inward nut is much easier to get from inside the engine compartment. Let's get this one right off of here. We're gonna leave one of the nuts on here just a few good threads. That way there, there's no chance that this strut can fall out. Moving down the strut, if you were to look, you're gonna see a big old bolt with a nut. Using your 30-millimeter socket, you're going to go right here and remove this nut. And I'm gonna hold the bolt head with some pliers. Now, I'm just gonna drive this bolt out of here.

Next, we're gonna use a nice long pry bar, and we're gonna come right under here. Go ahead and pry and you should see it want to separate. We'll pull it away from the control arm. You can see our safety nut did its job. Remove that nut, and remove your strut unit. The next step is to take off our upper ball joint nut. Take that nut, and just put it back on there a few good threads.

Next, we're gonna use a hammer and hit directly on the knuckle right here. That's gonna shake this free, and you're gonna notice that these two are gonna separate. Pull down on this. Remove the nut. Now as this comes up, your knuckle is gonna wanna fall away. Obviously, you don't want to let it continue to fall, because you could put a tug on your ABS wire or even your brake hose. If you have something as simple as a coat hanger or maybe even one of these bungee cords, it's gonna come in handy.

Next, what we need to do is remove the bolt that comes through from the inside of the strut tower to the outside. I'm gonna hold this nut with a 21-millimeter wrench, and then I'm gonna remove the bolt side. Do the same to the other one real quick, right off of there. Grab onto that upper control arm, and get it right out of here. Now you wanna inspect your bolts. You wanna make sure they're in great condition. If they're rusted, or rotted, or they seem like they're weak in any way, of course, you're gonna wanna replace them. Also, take a peek at your threaded area. If it looks like it's rotted and the bolts or the nut isn't gonna be able to hold on like it should, obviously, try to clean it up, and replace them if need be. These actually look pretty good. I can clean them up a little bit. But, nevertheless, what I'm also gonna do is I'm gonna add a little bit of copper Never-Seez along this area where the bolts are gonna be going through the upper control arm bushings.

Okay, now it's gonna be time to get our upper control arm in here. Let's go ahead and slide it right in. And we remember the bolts go from the inside, and they're gonna go facing out. So go ahead and line up the bolt holes, slide the bolts through, and then, of course, we'll start the nuts, we'll snug them up, and then we'll torque them to manufacturer's specifications.

Now that we have the bolts in there, it's gonna be time to get the nuts on. Something that I want to mention real quick is your nuts are supposed to have a neoprene layer inside there that works as a lock. If you're gonna be reusing your nuts for any reason, maybe you haven't gotten new ones, that's okay. I would just use a tiny bit of thread locker, but we'll call it your prerogative. Let's go ahead and start these.

The next thing we need to do before we go ahead and snug these up is we need to make sure the control arm's sitting so it's pretty much parallel to the ground. So this flat area right here is gonna be parallel. I like to use a nice pry bar. I'll come through this slot right here, and just get it as close as possible. Obviously, if it's a little too high or it's a little too low, it isn't gonna be too big of a deal. But if you tighten it while it's hanging like this, and I try to stretch this, it's gonna cause an issue with the bushings, and eventually wear them out very quickly over time. Let's go ahead and bottom this out. Same to the rearward bolt.

All right, so now we're gonna go ahead and torque these down to 114 foot-pounds. I'd like to note that usually when I'm using a torque wrench, I try to torque the nut side. I'll hold the bolt side and I'll torque the nut side. As you can tell, there isn't very much space here so I'm gonna go the opposite. I'm gonna torque this side. Let's get this untied. And I'm gonna start our upper ball joint nut on here. Just pull this down. Start the nut on there. If you're having a hard time pulling this down, you could just put your pry bar up across here, and then, of course, go into the slot we used earlier. Let's snug this up. Now let's torque this to 85 foot-pounds.

Now it's gonna be time to get the strut up in here. If you were to look, you can see the area that the strut holes are gonna be. So just line that up. Put this right up in here. There we are. Now I'm just gonna start on all three of those nuts real quick. I like to use a little thread locker on those. If it looks like this needs to be twisted a little bit, you can use a long screwdriver or pry bar. Just come right through the bolt hole, and then you can twist it as needed. Once you think it looks pretty good, I'm just gonna take my pry bar, and then I'm gonna push, and lift at the same time. Okay? This is working its way right in there nicely.

Now we need to grab our bolts because we want to have it ready so once we have this lined up, we can go ahead and put it right through. Before we go too much further, we need to make sure we inspect our bolt, clean it, and, of course, make sure the threads are nice and clean and safe. Once we've done that, we'll add a little bit of thread locker, and we'll continue. So I got the bolt cleaned up. You'll notice I put on my thread locker like I said I would, and I also put a little bit of copper Never-Seez on the shanked area here. I wanted to make sure I didn't get any Never-Seez on the threaded area though. With that said, let's get this lined up, and get the bolt in. There we are. Let's get the nut on there. Now we're gonna go ahead and bottom this out, and then we'll torque it down.

So next, we're gonna have to torque this nut to 351 foot-pounds, which just to let you know, is a lot. Most torque wrenches don't necessarily go up that high. A lot of them only go up to 250. Torque it as high as you can. Just keep in mind the torque should be 351. That's torqued. Let's get our tie rod end back in here. Now it's gonna be time to get the nut on here. Just make sure if you've got a locking end, that's facing up. Bottom it out. Torque this to 111 foot-pounds. Torqued. Now, we're just gonna bottom out these strut nuts.

So now we're just gonna torque down these nuts. Something to think about though is before you torque them, you need to either have your wheel on and the wheel on the ground with the weight of the vehicle, or you can use a jack stand, but you need to have the weight of the vehicle forcing down on the strut. Now it's time to get our wheel back up on here. Start on all of our lug nuts, bottom them out, and then we're gonna torque them to 150 foot-pounds.

Next you need to get your vehicle so the tire is just barely on the ground so it can't spin. We're gonna torque the lug nuts, like I said, to 150 foot-pounds in a star pattern. Once you've torqued it, make sure you put back on your center cover, of course.

Okay friends. To get started on this job, the first thing that we need to talk about is safety. You want hand protection and eye protection at all times. With that said, safely raise and support your vehicle. So you have your front wheel off the ground. We're going to remove this center cover and then we're going to remove the lug nuts as well.

Get your wheel off of here. The next thing we need to do is loosen this jam nut right here. We're just going to go a little bit so that way there we'll be able to get this tie rod off. There we are. We need to get this cotter pin off of the outer tie rod end now, then we'll need to get the nut off of there. Use your 21 millimeter socket and remove your knot. I just put this back on there just a couple threads because now we're going to use our hammer and we're going to hit right along here on the knuckle.

Let's get this off of there, pull this down. Next, we're going to unscrew our outer tie rod end from the inner tie rod end. Once you get this off of here, just make sure you compare it completely to your new part. Next, I always like to use a little bit of copper Never-Seez along the threaded area. Now it's going to be time to install our brand new tie rod end. Go ahead and screw it right onto this inner tie rod end until it bottoms out with the jam nut. Let's get our tie rod end back in here. Now it's going to be time to get the nut on here. Just make sure if you've got a locking end, that's facing up.

Bottom it out. Torque this to 111 foot pounds. Torqued. Let's get this jam nut snugged back up. There we are. Now it's time to get our wheel back up on here. Start on all of our lug nuts, bottom them out, and then we're going to torque them to 150 foot pounds. Next you need to get your vehicle so the tire is just barely on the ground so it can't spin. We're going to torque the lug nuts like I said to 150 foot pounds in a star pattern. Once you've torqued it, make sure you put back on your center cover of course.

Okay, friends, to get started on this job, the first thing that we need to talk about is safety. You want hand protection and eye protection at all times. With that said, safely raise and support your vehicle so you have your front wheel off the ground. We're gonna remove this center cover and then we're gonna remove the lug nuts as well. Get your wheel off of here. Okay. Now that the wheel's off, we have a nice, clear view of our inner tie rod end. We need to loosen this jam nut right here. I like to use a nice big pair of pliers. Give that a little turn, grab it. There we are. Make sure it's broken free.

Now we're gonna remove our outer tie rod end nut. To remove your outer tie rod end, it's best to hit right along the knuckle. If for some reason that isn't working and you don't have a threaded area along the top of your tire rod, you could carefully try to bonk along the top as well. Now we're gonna unscrew our outer tie rod end from the inner. As you do this turning counterclockwise, you wanna count the amount of turns. One, two, and so on. Next, we're gonna fully remove our jam nut here. Sometimes there'll be stuck on there. If that's the case, hold your inner tie rod end with some pliers and then remove the nut.

Now we need to remove our bellows boot right here. To do that, you need to remove your outer clamp right here, and then closer to the rack, you're gonna find another clamp. Remove them both and get the boot off. To do this inner clamp, I like to use a nice pry bar like this and a hammer. And if you come right along this area, you're gonna see a metal piece that comes up. That's actually the clamp. We wanna break that right off. It's a single-time use. Grab our bellows boot, give it a twist, and pull it off the inner tie rod end in the rack. Check your bellows boot. Make sure it is not torn in any way. This one looks great. We'll reuse it. Now it's time to take the inner tie rod end off of the rack. To do that, you can use several things. They have an inner tie rod end tool that'll slide over this and it'll have a little hooky-do that'll grab onto that. Not everybody has access to that. So, I like to use some nice long pliers. You can pretty much find these anywhere. Grab right onto it. And then I'm gonna turn it counterclockwise to break it free. Now, we'll just unscrew it completely.

There we are, friends. Now it's gonna be time to install our brand new tire rod end. I always like to use a tiny bit of thread locker. With that said, at this point, I'm just gonna go ahead and put it in here. I'll screw it until it bottoms out and then we'll snug it up. Now that we have this bottomed out, it's gonna be time to snug it up. I'm gonna go back to using these nice long pliers. When I grab onto this, I'm just gonna give it a nice little tweak to make sure it's locked down. I don't wanna continue twisting so I don't damage the rack though. So, pay special attention to that.

That's nice and tight. Let's go ahead and get this jam nut off of here. Now it's gonna be time to get our bellows boot back on here. When we remove the inside clamp, you probably broke it. If that's the case, go ahead and get yourself a wire tie. I like to just start it and then I'll slide it right over like this. I'm not gonna tighten it down yet. Next, we're gonna put the bellows boot on the power steering rack and we're gonna push as far as it can go so it's completely bottomed out and then we'll go ahead and snug it up. Get that on there. Give it a nice twist. Make sure it's completely situated. That looks great.

At this point, I usually like to use some long nose pliers. It's something that's easy to grip onto and you can give it a twist. And then, of course, we'll trim off whatever's left. There we are. Trim this. Next, I always like to take the bellows boot and I'll just try to push it in a little bit. If you were to look at the inner tie rod end, you're gonna see there's these grooves. Just put a tiny bit of grease or whatever type of lubricant you might have just along that area. That's right where this boot has to ride. The reason for that is because when you go to get an alignment, you don't want the boot being stuck on the inner tie rod end and then twisting as the alignment professional's trying to do his job. Get that up there. That feels great.

Now we're gonna put our clamp back on there. Let's take our clamp, put it right on our pliers here, get it ready. I'm gonna go over the inner tie rod end and then, of course, over the boot. Next, we're just gonna put a little bit of copper never-seize on our threads. That's gonna help prevent things from seizing up. Take your nice new jam nut, we'll put it right on here. Something to mention, anytime you're doing your inner tie rod end, it's always a good idea to replace your outer tie rod end, especially if it looks as though they're in the same condition. Ours looks really great. So, I'm just gonna go ahead and reinstall it. I'm gonna count as I go in. There's one, two, three, and so on. Okay. So, now I just finished up with the exact same amount of turns as when I took it off. Let's go ahead and bring this jam nut down close to the outer tie rod end. Now it's time to get our outer tie rod end into the knuckle. Let's see if I can just turn it a little bit. Slide it in here.

There we are. Take our nut. If it has a lock, make sure the lock is facing up, of course. Now we're gonna snug it down and then we're gonna torque it to 111 foot-pounds. Now we're just gonna make sure our jam nut's nice and snug. Awesome. Now it's time to get our wheel back up on here. We'll start on all of our lug nuts, bottom them out, and then we're gonna torque them to 150 foot-pounds. Next, you need to get your vehicle so the tire's just barely on the ground so it can't spin. We're gonna torque the lug nuts, like I said, to 150 foot-pounds in a star pattern. Once you've torqued it, make sure you put back on your center cover, of course. Okay, friends, anytime you do any type of front-end work on your vehicle, it's always super important to make sure you get your vehicle down to a reputable alignment shop. They're gonna take care of you and make sure you're going straight on down the road. Be safe out there.

Okay, friends, to get started on this job, the first thing that we need to talk about is safety. You want hand protection and eye protection at all times. With that said, safely raise and support your vehicle so you have your front wheel off the ground. We're going to remove this center cover, and then we're going to remove the lug nuts as well. Get your wheel off of here. Okay, now that the wheel is off, we have a nice, clear view of our inner tie rod end. We need to loosen this jam nut right here, I like to use a nice big pair of pliers. Give that a little turn, grab it. There we are. Make sure it's broken free.

Now, we're going to remove our outer tie rod end nut. To remove your outer tie rod end, it's best to hit right along the knuckle. If for some reason that isn't working and you don't have a threaded area along the top of your tie rod, you could carefully try to bonk along the top as well. Now that we have the tie rod out off, we can move this around. And that's great because we want to be able to get this caliper off. Something, before we do that that I want to mention, is that this rotor right here is going to have a little bit of weight. To do the lower ball joint, we're going to have to take off this whole unit right there. So, of course, that's going to weigh something as well. If you have an issue with something that's heavy, it's probably a great idea to go ahead and remove the rotor as well but, of course, that'll make more work so you'll have to clean up the surfaces in between the wheel bearing and the rotor.

Next, we need to get our ABS wire off of our brake hose. After that, we're going to remove our two caliper bracket mounting bolts. That's going to relieve the caliper and we're going to move it away from the rotor area. Once you do that, you need to have something ready so you can hang the caliper. You don't want to put any pressure on your flex hose. I've got my little bungee cord ready. Just going to put that in a couple of threads. Remove that bolt. All right. Now, we'll just set this up. Next, we need to follow our ABS wire. If you were to give it a tug, you're going to see this area right here moving around. That's because that's where it's attached to on the backside of the plastic. I'm just going to use this little forky tool, you can use pretty much whatever you've got. Give this a little flex, and I'm going to see if I can get behind there and just relieve it from the plastic.

Okay. Pull this through. Now we need to disattach this. If you were to push on this tab and then draw this away, it'll separate the two. We're going to get this off of here as well. And then, of course, we'll bring the ABS wire all the way down to here and we'll wrap it up so it's as safe as possible. At this point, I always like to move down to the lower ball joint. I'm going to get this cotter pin out of here, and I'm going to loosen up this nut. I'll leave it back on a couple of threads and then we're going to move up to the upper ball joint. Let's get this nut off of here. Just leave that on a couple of threads as well.

Next, we're going to take our hammer and we're going to bonk right along here on our knuckle. You want to be careful not to damage your upper ball joint boot. So, now that we have the upper ball joint out of there, you want to make sure that you tie up the knuckle so it's going to be semi-safe, it's not going to be just flopping down because the next thing we need to do is relieve our lower ball joint. When we do that, we're going to do approximately the same thing. We're going to hit right along here on the knuckle, try to cause vibration, and hopefully, this area will separate.

There you are. As you can tell it's separated, our safety nut did its job, and, of course, the upper area that we tied up is also keeping us safe. So, we've got that untied now, I'm going to relieve the nut. You need to lift up on the knuckle and keep in mind that it's going to be a little heavy. Let's get the knuckle right off of there. And we have a nice, clear view of our lower ball joint at this point. We want to remove this grease fitting right here. Once we've done that, we're going to remove the snap ring and we'll move along.

Get this right off of here, I'll show you what it looks like in a sec. So, this is what the snap ring looks like. You need to go ahead and get some of these little pliers, you get into those little circles, as you squeeze, it spreads it, and it'll come off with the lower ball joint. You could use your hammer, give it a whole bunch of bonks and drive it right out of here, but you might, of course, damage your lower control arm, nobody wants that. I'm going to use the ball joint tool and I'll show you how to press it out. Here's the tools we're going to need. The ball joint press itself, you're going to need a cup that fits over the lip of the ball joint, but still fits on the control arm, and then, of course, you're going to need one of these that has the slot for the stud. Put these like this, just like that. Take your press, put it over, and go ahead and bottom it out. Now, as we drive this down, it's going to push the ball joint through. Once it breaks free, the whole going to kind of flop around. So make sure you have a good grip on it.

You can see it starting to go down, and there's our lower ball joint. Now it's going to be time to get ready to install our brand new lower ball joint. Something to pay attention to is to press this in, you're going to need to get on this lip area right here, except not on this portion, on this portion. As you can tell, the boot's in the way. Take a small pocket screwdriver and just see if you can weasel your way in between the lip and the boot and separate the two. Obviously, be very careful, you don't want to damage the boot. We'll get that out of the way and now we can continue. It's always a great idea to clean down the area you're going to be working. Make sure you clean out that hole, you don't want any debris in or around it. To install our new lower ball joint, you're going to need something that looks like this.

It has a little cupped area. The reason for that is because it needs to go over the hole on the lower control arm where the lower ball joint is going to come up, and then through. If you put a flat plate here, obviously, the lower ball joint is going to be able to come up far enough to be able to put your clip on there. So, we'll say that's there, take your lower ball joint, and then, of course, you need another cup. The lower cup needs to have a hole for the stud to go through and it needs to be just thick enough or wide enough that it can fit along the lip of the lower ball joint. Just like this. Go ahead and line this up. Now we're going to get our ball joint press, put it together, and then, of course, as we start tightening it, it's going to pull this up and into the lower control arm. So, now we need to make sure we align this upper cup up because if it's off by a little bit, it's a possibility we could damage our lower ball joint. Now we're going to tighten this. What you want to pay attention to as you tighten it is to make sure the ball joint is going straight up. If it seems like it's going like this, obviously, you're going to have an issue.

So, you can see right here, it looks like it's starting to go at an angle. I'm going to stop there, relieve tension or pressure, I'm going to move this a little bit and see if I can get that side to go up. As you can see, as I'm pressing this up, you want to make sure you don't have any gap between the ball joint and the lower control arm itself, so I need to continue going up. Once it's bottomed out, leave it just as it is. Hit right on the lower control arm with your hammer a couple of times, just to cause vibration and that's going to settle this in just in case it's a little off-kilter. That's great. Let's get this out of here.

Now, let's get this clip on here. Okay. Make sure it's sitting all the way around. You want to make sure it's inside the groove. If it's not in the groove and it's possible that it could fall off, there's also a possibility that the lower ball joint might not be secure. Now it's going to be time to get our boot on here, just line it up on one side and then take some pliers and just help it up all the way around. You want to make sure it's completely secured so it can keep the moisture out. Make sure it's secure. Let's move along. Something that I always try to pay attention to is the area where the cotter pin is going to go through. Obviously, if we're going to have that big old knuckle on here with the rotor, it's going to be very hard to get a cotter pin in between and inside there. So, use a flat-head screwdriver, use a pick, whatever you need to do, give it a spin, so it's facing front to back. Perfect. Now it's going to be time to get our knuckle on here. Make sure you have your lower ball joint nut in your hand because it's going to make your life much easier, slide it up on, start that ball joint nut on.

Now, we're just going to snug up that lower ball joint nut. The reason for that is because I want to make sure there's no way that it can come loose on me while I continue working. Stop right there, we'll move along. Next, we're going to need to get our upper ball joint into the knuckle. That's going to be easiest if you have a nice pry bar like this. What we're going to want to do is go above the control arm right here, and then find an area in the frame that'll make it so we can go into and be able to pull this down. Leave the bar right where it is, line this up. Go ahead and pull this down now and start your upper ball joint nut.

Now it's time to torque these down. Let's torque this upper ball joint nut to 85 foot-pounds. Now, let's torque this lower ball joint nut to 111 foot-pounds. Now it's going to be time to put in your locking cotter pin. If for some reason you notice that the slots on your nut don't line up with the hole on the ball joint, you need to continue tightening that nut until you get to the next slot. You do not want to loosen it, just check it. Well, that one actually lines up perfect. Go ahead and peen it over. I'm going to grab some pliers and cutters.

Make sure it's 100% peened over and there's no way that that locking clip or cotter pin can come out. Next is going to be time to get our caliper back on there. You want to inspect your bolts, make sure they're in good condition. If for some reason the threaded area looks like it's rotted or it has any type of never-seize or anything inside of it, you need to make sure you clean them up and get off any never-seize. Of course, the area on the bracket where the caliper bolts are going to go to, make sure those are clean as well. Once you have your bolts cleaned up, let's go ahead and get this caliper ready for install.

I'm going to slide the pads over the rotor and then line up the holes for the bolts to hold the caliper to the knuckle. It's a great idea to use a little bit of thread locker if you have access to some, but we'll call it your prerogative. Bottom these out, and then we'll torque them down. Torque these to 148 foot-pounds. Now let's get our ABS wire re-secured. Go ahead and reattach it back to the flex hose going up to where it's going to be secured up here, come up this way, get this back on here. If for some reason any of your clips are broken, you need to make sure that you have your ABS wire secure so there's no way it can get damaged by the wheel as it comes around, or, of course, driving the vehicle in any way. Reconnect this in, give it a nice tug to make sure it's 100% in. Put this all behind the nice plastic here, and then re-secure it in the backside.

Now it's time to get our outer tie rod end into the knuckle. Let's see if I can just turn it a little bit, slide it in here. There we are. Take our nut, If it has a lock, make sure the lock is facing up, of course. Now, we're going to snug it down and then we're going to torque it to 111 foot-pounds. Now it's time to get our wheel back up on here. We'll start on all of our lug nuts, bottom them out. And then we're going to torque them to 150 foot-pounds. Next, you need to get your vehicle so the tire's just barely on the ground so it can't spin. We're going to torque the lug nuts like I said to 150 foot-pounds in a star pattern. Once you've torqued it, make sure you put it back on your center cover, of course. Okay, friends, anytime you do any type of front-end work on your vehicle, it's always super important to make sure you get your vehicle down to a reputable alignment shop. They're going to take care of you and make sure you're going straight on down the road. Be safe out there.