My truck is a 2003 GMC Sierra 1500 4x4 with the 4.8. Front end is a little sloppy as the truck has 115k on it. Was wondering if you guys could recomend a vendor or place to get a kit to rebuild the front end. Would like to include control arm bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends. Have seen many on ebay but like to buy from a known, reliable vendor. Thanks

 

That is all available thru your local chevy dealer otherwise check with 4 Wheel Parts or Summit Racing. Google for a phone number.

 

Well wait, what parts are bad? If the front end is sloppy and you don't know what parts are bad, why are you rebuilding the whole thing? Chances are, you still have good components in the front end, replacing them can cause alignment issues if you unnecessarily replace components if you don't have to.

Replace the bad, keep the good. It's easy to check your suspension components.

Place a floor jack under your control arm and lift the wheel, grab the top and bottom of the wheel and use gentle push/pull on the top and bottom of the wheel. Here you can feel either wheel bearing play or ball joint play (It's nice to have a helper do this for you while you look). If you see your brake rotor moving with the play you feel, then it's wheel bearing. If you see your steering knuckle move, then look at your upper or lower ball joint and see where the knuckle moves at. You can also place a pry bar or pipe under the wheel and lift up. This will also show ball joint play.

Next grab the front of the tire with both hands and push/pull gently and feel for slop. Pitman and idler arms go out extremely commonly on these trucks, so check those too. The way i have been told to check them at work, for your particular truck, is grab a pair of channel lock/ribbjoint pliers and grab the center link. Twist it and look at your idler/pitman arms If they move, then the idler/pitman arm is bad.

The pitman and idler on these trucks can cause some major steering slop and overall bad ride quality.

That's my recommendation, but if you wanted to replace everything anyways, I'd go to carquest/napa/autozone and pick out all the parts.

And you'll need an alignment after ball joint, tie rod, center link and pitman arm replacement.

 

Excellent advice

 

;Thanks for the advice on the Pitman arm. I really would just like to go through the front end as I like the truck and plan on keeping it for some time. Not big on the dealers, prices are too high. But sounds like my local NAPA will work fine.

 

I use all Napa parts at my work .. they are good quality IMO. But be sure to inspect the front end for bad components though unless you want to replace everything. If so, just go at it! Upper ball joints, lower, control arm bushings, sway bar links and bushings, inner and outer tie rods, center link, pitman and idler arms. Heck you could even put a new steering gear on there! It would make putting the new pitman arm on a bit easier.

Also, a good air compressor and impact gun will make all of this work a million times easier ... installing a pitman arm onto a steering gear shaft without a impact gun sounds painfully difficult.