Another thread about ball joints and leveling kits

Hey fellas,

New poster, long time lurker.
I've got a 2014 outdoorsman 4x4 crew cab with the hemi. I managed to get a big ol nail in the sidewall of my tires at 7000 miles. No idea how it happened. But I can't patch it apparently. Super frustrated. Anyways, I have my old wheels and tires off of my old 02 that I was planning on putting on after I get the money for a proper lift. Well since this happened, I figured I'd just put them on now. But my current budget doesn't really allow for me to drop 500 bucks on the new control arms + leveling it. My questions is: How long will it take before my ball joints come out of my control arms? Is it an immediate thing or does it take place after a few hundred or thousand miles? If I can get away with running a spacer for a few hundred miles and then switching my control arms I'll do that. What do you think, guys?

There is no magic number for when/if they will fail. Your biggest waste of money will come from paying for 2 seperate alignments. One for when you do the spacer lift, and one for after you do the control arms.

I would either replace your one tire and save for the correct lift, or just do it all now.

Some guys pop during install, some pop in a few hundred, some like mine have gone a year and no issues....

mojoe said:

There is no magic number for when/if they will fail. Your biggest waste of money will come from paying for 2 seperate alignments. One for when you do the spacer lift, and one for after you do the control arms.

I would either replace your one tire and save for the correct lift, or just do it all now.

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Ah good call. Alright thanks fellas.

Will this happen to all 4G Rams? I have 2012 Ram 1500 and would really love to level it but I dont want to be driving and have the ball joint pop

GreenMonster said:

Will this happen to all 4G Rams? I have 2012 Ram 1500 and would really love to level it but I dont want to be driving and have the ball joint pop

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It doesn't seem to bother the 12s

Westwind1124a said:

It doesn't seem to bother the 12s

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Yeah my '12 is leveled and fine...only with the 13+ Rams

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JJP71584 said:

Yeah my '12 is leveled and fine...only with the 13+ Rams

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Same with me. Everything I've seen is from the 13+

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You guys are scaring me... I'm scheduled to get Bilsteins installed at 2.1" on Wednesday (on my 2013)... With stock everything else.

Do I REALLY need to drop $400+ to get new UCA's to avoid my ball joints popping out?

When was your build date on your truck. I think you can look in the door jam
I also heard it was LATE 13-14. Mine is November 2012 and its a 13....

I'll have to check the date, but I bought it in June... So definitely not late '13

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mine popped during install.

I have two 2014's done with rancho loaded quick lift no issue with either truck