high mileage 94 front suspension

[tp85]

Hey guys,
I have a 1994 K2500 Suburban with 160,000 miles on the clock. It is a great vehicle, and my wife still loves it..so I gotta keep it rolling. It certainly has had it's share of problems over the years...mostly little electrical stuff and normal wear items. I just got done replacing the intake manifold gasket for the second time (first time was at 80K) and, of course, that egg-shell heater hose connection on the manifold. The drivetrain has been solid.

After 160K on the original hardware, I'm starting to get a little worried about the front suspension/steering. 160K just seems incredible to me...not needing to replace any front end parts (other than the idler arm/pitman arm). But I guess the 3/4 ton parts just can handle a lot more than 1/2 ton parts.

Currently, there is a faint click coming from the front end during tight turns over a bump and my lower ball joint boots have small splits. Given the miles, I'm thinking that a complete rebuild may be a good idea. I'm talking upper/lower ball joints, tie rods, upper/lower control arm bushings, sway bar rubber, etc. Am I crazy? I have seen that there are kits available (e.g. http://www.p-s-t.com/), but I have always used GM parts. So I'm not sure about the kits. How about the half shafts...I'm sure the CV boots are about to splits after turning all these miles. How about the differential output shaft seals? I sort of figure that, once I'm into the area, perhaps it would be wise to just do everything.

Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated.
Tom

[Izzy]

I just picked up a complete moog steering setup for my 98. The parts are top notch and imo they tend to be better than the Delco parts. I already had polyurethane control arm bushings with my DJM lower/upper arms.

[CEDJUNIOR]

The clicking you're heaing during turns is most likely your cv's making the noise. If you're going to use the PST kit you'll have to take the cv's out anyway, so that would be a good time to replace them. I installed the PST kit on my truck last month. It was a pain the butt, but it had to be done. Its a quality kit, costs way less than anything else I've seen. You'll need to take the upper and lower control arms somewhere to have the old bushing pressed out and the new ones pressed in unless you have a press in your shop. Other tools you'll need :

2-3 jaw puller

ball joint press(if you have press in lower ball joints) If you're taking the control arms to have the bushings pressed, I guess you could have them do the ball joints too.

Picklefork/bj seperator

I just rented that stuff from autozone. It took me about a week to do the whole thing, but it rained alot and I was working outside, and I didn't have another vehicle at my disposal when ever I needed it.

[72MARIO]

Hey our 87 burb has 455000 km on it and it's still good and tight. My dads 73 1 ton has over 1 million miles on it and it only needed 1 ball joint. Keep the front end lubed up and it will last a long time.

[tp85]

well, i have gotten a lot a similar responses on other boards. so i'm going to keep rollin with the original stuff until something needs fixin. i'm confident the CV joints are ok, the click or knock is just a single knock...not like a bunch of clicks while making a turn.

the ball joint boots do need to be replaced. any chance the boots can be replaced with out swaping the joint itself? past ball joint jobs that i have done have involved both the joint and boot. just wondering if there is a trick to dealing with just the boots.

thanks for all the input.
tom