99 Ram: Lower control arm rusting

[kevm14]

Driver's side lower control arm looking pretty sketchy. Significant material missing near lower shock mount and the spring mount is also not looking too safe. I should probably plan to do the lower control arms. Having a lower fold in half while driving wouldn't be very pleasant.

Moog has a complete arm with ball joint for $131.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 01&jsn=465

I would also want to do a few other items.

Stabilizer bar end link kit
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 0&jsn=2386

And front shocks, to match the new rears I did 4 years ago
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 6&jsn=3528

Put this in my cart. That would be another $344 into the truck not including the bumper I just bought. Is this mechanically totaled?

[kevm14]

If it isn't mechanically totaled yet I have more things.

The passenger side spring broke half a coil a few years back so....I should probably do two new front springs.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 2&jsn=7635

And spring insulators....
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 4&jsn=7641

And bump stops
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 9&jsn=7642

That brings the damage up to $530 before tax/shipping/discount. Ouch.

[kevm14]

This finally happened. This control arm literally wants to bend in half. I drove it home on eggshells.

I ordered springs, LCAs and shocks. Just realized I forgot the stabilizer bar links and bump stops. Crap, I better add that.

[kevm14]

And done. I wanted to run to the transfer station one last time before commencing with the work so I inspected the control arm a little more carefully. While it was pretty sketchy I determined that there was enough meat for another trip. And there was.

About $566 worth of product from Rockauto (shipped), plus another $40 or so in hardware. So call it $600. The only hardware I ended up needing was lower shock mount bolts, nuts and washers. The lower control arm hardware was like perfect and everything else I got with the new parts.

Started it Saturday afternoon with Bill and finished Sunday morning myself. Not too bad really. I got Moog LCAs with ball joints and oddly they are sealed. I mean, whatever. They'll outlast the truck easily. Unlike the SRX, on this truck, the driver's side seems noticeably worse than the passenger side.

Notice how this is still intact.

Driver's side though.....

One funny thing happened. When we were jacking the truck up initially, the driver's side shock decided to completely puke out all of its fluid. Never really seen that before and I was relieved (and surprised) that it was just the shock. It looked like brake fluid at first from where the puddle was. Don't worry, that will still happen later.

There are some frame issues with this truck but the worst ones seem to be in the middle where there is some significant missing material. The front has its issues but it looks worse than it is. The paint or whatever it had tends to scale and make it look like Titanic wreckage. But it generally wire brushes off and most of it seemed solid underneath. I did sort of a half-assed CRC treatment to sections of the front. I think the rear is pretty barnacley but the middle section I guess somewhat concerns me for inspection coming up early next year.