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ok
so not too long ago i replaced a ball joint on my passenger side cuz it was SHOT! the car handled great for about a week and now its gotten worse.
whenever im driving above 25 mph i get a real bad thumping sort of sound and the car pulls left. it does it with the clutch engaged and disengaged. but as soon as i hit the brakes(at lower speeds) the thumping stops and its super smooth. also if i hit any sort of bump, even a pebble, my steering goes out the window. it gets super sloppy and i have zero control untill it can catch up.
ive checked the tie rods, ball joint, and cv, on the driver side and they're all tight. the boot does seem to have some cracking in it thought, although the cracks are tiny.

any ideas?

thanks
connor

did you get the right size ball joint? Its possible you could have installed the smaller one on and it has play but with that many issues Ild imagine if you put it on a lift and pulled both front wheels you should be able to see the problem pretty easily. Also have you inspected your calipers to see if theres any problem there as they seem to help the issue as well as check for any play in your hubs.

Tighten your wheel nuts.

i went to oreily's and they only gave me one choice in ball joint's
i put on a moog
ill check it against the other one, length wise and see if thats it
thanks

Conrad17 wrote:i went to oreily's and they only gave me one choice in ball joint's
i put on a moog
ill check it against the other one, length wise and see if thats it
thanks

when you installed the shaft into the "hole" was it a tight fit? the older style are around 1/4" smaller then the new ones. if you put the wrong ones in i imagine theyd have installed extremely easily.

couldnt be a wheel bearing could it guys?

the went in like butter lol
in fact i was blown away at how easy they were to do......hmmmm....

i tightened the lug nuts that helped "which i feel dumb for not checking" but alas its still hopping and popping. also a new symptom, when ever i turn i get real bad wheel hop, REAL BAD... also my stearing wheel is a qtr of turn off.... maybe hopped a gear in the rack?

Sounds like your toe in is really off. Use a measuring tape and measure the distance between the wheels at the front and back of the front wheels. Make sure you use the same measuring point, like inside tread to inside tread. The front measurement should be about 1/4" less then the rear measurement. The wheels should toe in just slightly. I'm betting yours is more like 1".

I was about to call you on the 1/4 inch, but I did the math and it turns out to be a max allowable toe in of almost exactly 1/4 inch. Best case scenario for tire wear is 0 (same front and rear) but the little bit of toe in adds stability in a straight line and in corners. So, less than 1/4, more than 0.

Zero toe is not desireable. IF the wheels are perfectly parallel they tend to wobble very slightly as they attempt to self center. 3-5mm of toe preloads the wheel bearings and stabilizes the wheel.