Finding all the right pieces

In order to get my 2000 Ford F150 ready for the trail, there are a few things upgrades and maintenance that needs to take place. Some of what needs to be done is simply to keep the pickup running as efficient as possible. Some of the other are purely upgrades I want to make, that is all.
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to replace my front shocks, upper control arms and ball joints, and lower ball joints.

I have to apologize, I fully intended to take some photos of what I was doing, while I was doing it. But somewhere along the way I became ultra greasy and my wife did not want me in the house until the job was complete.

Plus, let’s be honest here, I did not really know what to expect when I began and soon found out this was a job I could do, but it would take some time.

In preparation to fix the front end of my pickup, I began research online for the best parts and how to do what I wanted to do. I read countless articles on how to replace ball joints and upper control arms. I learned, or rather read, the ins and outs of ball joints and control arms, I felt at the end of the experience, I was an expert.

That was until I began to actually take the pickup apart and get to work.

But I digress; I talked with anybody who would listen and many that didn’t even care about my project. I picked the brains of people at auto part stores.

Then, I began to gather my parts. I looked at probably more than 100 places to purchase parts online, and I made a dozen phone calls to local parts stores to determine what parts I wanted and where I was going to purchase them from.

I had made up my mind and the purchase was made. Now all I had to do, was wait for the parts to arrive and install them.

As it turned out, waiting for the parts was the easy part. I seemed to get a package a day for about a week and a half, with each box being shipped from an online retailer containing only one part.
Finally the parts were here and ready to be installed …