This weekend i'm going to change the left frontupper ball joint and pitman arm on my 99 zr2. Are there any tricks/concerns I should have like supporting the springs or anything or is it pretty straightforward on these trucks? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Im not sure if ZR2s are the same but on a standard blazer you need a pitman tool to remove it and its torqued to 185 ftlb on the steering gear.

 

Cool. Now i have another question. I took the truck to a reliable shop for an alignment and they said they won't do it until i fix the pitman and ball joint. I trust their diagnosis, but i also trust my brother who says...

Are you sure you need a PA though? I know on GM fbodies the pivot joint is
on the centre-link (where the PA attaches to it) and not on the PA itself,
therefore, the PA would never need changing since there is no joint to wear
out. I would be curious to know if it were the same setup since it is GM.

http://chevy.off-road.com/chevy/data...005/199749/pit
manarm.jpg

If that is a blazer and a pic of the pitman arm (which is the short
arm....pitmans attach to the steering box and connect it to the steering
linkage), then you wouldn't need the pitman. You can see in that pic that
the pivot joint is on the control rod/centre-link, not the pitman. Just
means you would need a different part and if not in stock then you have to
wait for ordering.

Is he right? Is the pitman not likely a problem?

 

I had a shop tell me they couldn't align because I had a bad pitman arm, but my balljoints were fine, took it to my regular mechanic for a second opinion, and he took me out and showed me the toasted ball joints, and assured me the pitman arm was fine.

Maybe do the ball joints first, then see if you need to do the pitman arm?

 

That was his suggestion too. So after I change the ball joint...how do i test the pitman arm. Is it side to side play i look for, steering wheel play(which i definitely feel a lot of driving), up/down wheel play?

thanks!

 

I have seen the Pitmain arm pivot point where it attaches to the center link go bad before, just 2 days ago i just changed a pitman arm where the pivot point had a lot of play in it. If you are feeling a lot of steering wheel play and you think your pitman arm is good, your idler arm is going bad or the gears in the steering box and too much freeplay.