Alrighty guys bear with me here...I don't quite know what all I'm looking at, but I've been having some body roll issues, and I'm just trying to make sure its not a sway bar issue, or any other potential problem with the front end.

So heres a pic I got of the front passenger's tire.



My question is first about the red box. Should there be a nut or clip on the top side of that stack of spacers and what not? Both sides look like this, but do all those little spacer things really have tight threading to stay on?

Second, the green, what exactly is that. I think thats the lower control arm, and the blue is some sort of bushing? The bottom of the blue thing is kinda mushrooming out, and looks dry rotted..should this be replaced, or can it be replaced?

Also, I couldn't differentiate between the sway bar, and every other horizontal bar going from wheel to wheel..so the second possibility is this



Is that the tie rod end? Or the sway bar, or is the first pic the sway bar end, orrrr what exactly am I lookin at? Sorry for the ignorance, I'm still trying to learn all the front suspension components!

*Combining posts

Haha yea, TripleBlack told me about it too, took me like 10 minutes to fix! Not really though...but those dang IMG tags get me every time. I knew I shouldn't have slept through that HTML class in high school..

EDIT: Fixed [img] tags. TBB

 

you can delete my post...

the first pic didnt load and i commented that i couldnt see the red, green or blue

 

Haha yea, TripleBlack told me about it too, took me like 10 minutes to fix! Not really though...but those dang IMG tags get me every time[:@]. I knew I shouldn't have slept through that HTML class in high school..

 

What codition are your shocks in?? Also the stack of spacers with the nut on top is the sway bar links that are on both sides, there is a nut on top and long bolt through the center are they tight?? The green box shows the ball joint and you said it was mushroomed out a little bit is the rubber around it cracked and leaking grease?? The third and final picture shows your tie rod end, is that leaking grease or is it just really dirty???

 

First pic is the sway-bar end.

Red box, that's normal. There's apparently some sort of 'locknut' or something similar already built in that keeps it together. Seems like there's something extra in there, though. The blue rubber part, possibly aftermarket?

Green box, looks like a lower ball joint to me. I see a rusted bolt which tells me they've been replaced already. Good news is you won't have to bust through the rivets to replace them. Bad news is that's more than likely your popping sound and even worse news is you can spend a decent penny replacing with high quality parts (translation: MOOG or Power Performance).

Second pic, you are correct. That is the tie-rod end. Looks to be in decent shape unless that's a tear in the boot. Looks like it could be just grease. This is attached to your steering knuckle (but you can't really see it in the pic).

 

What would someone have put in? I did buy the blazer used, so the previous owner may have added something..

And yea I've had the lower ball joints replaced but I only did the lowers. I know my uppers can't be far behind now, but if the uppers are bad, would they put extra strain on the new lowers causing that mushrooming? Or is that mushrooming normal as long as it doesn't leak grease? FWIW, I didn't get the MOOGs, but went with Carquest branded joints due to cost, but they do have grease zerks on them, so I try and keep em greased and make em last.

Ill wipe the excess grease off the tie rod end and see if anything comes back.

@ thegr81, I've still got the factory Bilsteins on, and I'm almost to 100k miles, so theyre probably in pretty bad shape. I'm just trying to figure out if I just need new shocks, or if theres a sway bar issue.

 

Well I would suspect the shocks, for causing body roll if there that old and have that many miles on them. The sway bar looks fine as long as the nut and bolt are tight!!

 

Any idea what that blue thing is on my sway bar end link? It looks like if it is aftermarket, it would just raise the bar up? Does that make the cross direction more rigid?

 

With the sway bar raising or lowering the ends I don't believe makes a difference, I could be wrong but I wouldn't think it would!!

 

Yea I didn't think so either..you don't happen to have a pic of your front end do you?