Hey there... I have an urgent question for ya'll... I am replacing the lower ball joints on my 2000 Ford Ranger XLT 3.0 but, I am not quite sure where the JACK STANDS are supposed to set. The Owners Manual mention a location that I can't find on my truck. The Repair Book I just bought from Advance Auto Parts is the same. Whichever position they mention or illustrate is not on my truck... at all...!!! The thing is; I need to put the front on the jack stands so I can use the hydraulic floor jack to support the control arm in order to be able to remove the spindle/caliper/balljoint... Right now, I have the floor jack under the shock absorber, that was the "proper location I found on the web"... But, Since the floor jack is there, I can not fit any other jack to support the lower arm [front end]. Most documents I found on the web mention a specific location that it seems to be missing from my truck... Does anyone know about a website with actual pictures for the jack stand positions?? I've been googling the info for hours without any luck... Thank you...!!!!!!
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Well, replacing the lower ball joints was not as bad as I thought. It took me about 2 hours to complete the job after I figured out where to put the damn jack... My Ranger is working great now; in fact. I am planning on replacing the upper arms, shock absorbers and whatever else to make my truck even better. I don't understand why most mechanics want to charge you an arm and a leg for this job. Yes, I know that I had to ask for help on the proper jack-positioning but, I really hope those mechanics already know how to do that! What drove me to pull a DIY is that every-single-one of the shops I got an estimate from wanted to charge for a 4-hour labor (On average they say there will be 2-3 people working on my vehicle at the same time). Yet, the job would be done in two hours.... JKropetz; Thank you, I actually found that web page along with other Whynes books to detail the proper removal of the lower ball joints. I appreciate your post though. Bill; Well... you see, the problem was that I wanted to find the RIGHT location for the jack. I am not sure If i mentioned before but, this is my first time attempting to do any work on my car. The most I ever did on a vehicle was changing a tire and, perhaps refilling fluids. Someone had told me that in order to replace the lower ball joints I needed both, a jack-stand (for the frame itself) and a floor jack in order to 'compress' the lower arm to be able to pull it apart. I am not sure if that makes any sense to you, I know you guys know a lot more about cars (specially Rangers) than I do. So I was trying to follow the directions given to me. I guess it would have helped if I had actually inspect the jack that came with my truck before posting. I was not until then that I found the right location for it on the front-end. Offroadinbabe73; So is grammar school, right? And I am not asking you to learn how to write properly before responding to a post. If you are incapable to understand that there will always be someone with less knowledge than you on a particular topic, that's sad. Specially when you are part of an online community with discussion boards created to help others.
Thank you Jon! I was told that replacing the lower ball joints was going to take longer since I had to idea what I was doing but, I guess two hours is not too terrible bad. I can deal with that workout every now-and-then... My next step is to replace the shock absorbers. Do you know what brand is good? Note that I am not trying to 'pimp my ride', I just need something that is reliable. I am almost positive the ones currently installed on my truck right now are the ones that came with it from factory. According to Advance Auto Parts some of them start at 26.00 but, I am not sure about the quality of that brand, which I can't even remember. Do you know any affordable brand of shocks that are actually good? Are gas-shocks any better? Would it make any difference compared to the non-gas ones? I also think I need to replace the light bulbs on the dashboard, I can only see half of the speedometer at night, 99% of the people I've talk to tell me that I should just take it to the dealership and have it done there, because is hard to pull the entire dashboard.... But, I am hoping it wont be much more difficult than replacing the lower ball joints. Which brings up a new question; Do you know if there is any 'upgrades' on the dashboard thing [I think is called cluster]? I would much rather to have a blue light instead of the green one... Can I just replace the light bulb or buy a different plastic thingie to cover the green light? Thanks for all your help!
