2009 Liberty Front End Vibration

[D Durham]

I have a 2009 Liberty with 116k miles on it that I bought a few months ago. I was getting a slight vibration in the front, so when I took it in for oil change, I had the shop check it out. I was told that lower ball joint on one side was bad and that struts were bad as well.

I took it home and jacked it up to take a look, and the left front ball joint is definitely bad. And, the lower control arms look very rusted up! The collar that the strut goes into (not sure exactly what it is called) is very rusted up...

So, to make a long story short, I ordered upper and lower control arms with ball joints, new struts, and new shocks for the rear, and new tie rods.....Since I'm going to be at it, I got new bearing/hub assemblies for the front as well.

Never done all this work to a Liberty before. Is there any pointers or gotchas that I need to be aware off before I start this???

 

[tommudd]

I have a 2009 Liberty with 116k miles on it that I bought a few months ago. I was getting a slight vibration in the front, so when I took it in for oil change, I had the shop check it out. I was told that lower ball joint on one side was bad and that struts were bad as well.

I took it home and jacked it up to take a look, and the left front ball joint is definitely bad. And, the lower control arms look very rusted up! The collar that the strut goes into (not sure exactly what it is called) is very rusted up...

So, to make a long story short, I ordered upper and lower control arms with ball joints, new struts, and new shocks for the rear, and new tie rods.....Since I'm going to be at it, I got new bearing/hub assemblies for the front as well.

Never done all this work to a Liberty before. Is there any pointers or gotchas that I need to be aware off before I start this???

Things rust, no need to replace due to a little rust
We do not have struts, shocks all around, only cars with no upper control arms come with struts
next springs are bad by 60-65,000 miles, replacing just front shocks without springs is a bad way to go, will wear out the new shocks way faster
Everything else easy, unless cams are rusted in on lower control arms, mark them first if changing or you may be hauling it to the alignment shop
One of mine has over 234,000 miles, been lifted 4 plus inches since before it had 20,000 miles on it and still running stock LCAs
Hope you are buying good greaseable Moog LBJs and good UCAs, a lot of them are not worth installing