Clunking noise/ Uneven Tire Wear?

Ball joints go bad all the time and make clunking noises. I have replaced them on all of the mustangs I have had. Didn't notice any uneven tire wear though.

Put the car up on jackstands. Grab the tire with your hands and try to move it up/down, left/right, in/out. If there is any play in any direction you have a problem.

The problem is probably ball joint, tie rod end, or wheel bearing related if you have movement in any of these directions.

in/out would be wheel bearings and there might also be a nasty grinding sound when you turn the wheel with your hands plus you might hear a weird howl at high speed and get pull or vibration in the steering with wheel bearing failure

up/down would be ball joint if so just replace the whole a-arm with Cobra ones the a-arm already has a ball joint mounted in it so you do not have to mess with pickle forks and such and it has nice new bushings and supposedly even improves your turning radius

left/right would be tie rod ends I really do not know much about those never had one fail yet...

If there is no movement in any direction when you grab the tire with your hands and try to move it I would then suspect alignment, shock, or wheel balance.

You will probably see greatly improved handling after installing these new parts and getting the car aligned. It will be a whole new car

good luck with the ball joints....a tortch to heat them up makes the job go faster, but boy it was a b%$#h!!!!

HoustonGT said:

BTW Killy, where you the one that posted the how-to thread on replacing ball joints or tie-rod ends or was it someone else? That would be really helpful. It just seems as if taking the ball joint out and pressing it back in is going to be a huge PITA

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Like I said, get the Cobra a-arms. The ball joint is already in them and they are an improved design over the GT a-arm. This eliminates all ball joint installation issues. I bet the price diff is not that much between ball joints and complete a-arms.