What is this part?

Hi everyone. This part on my truck broke and there are grease coming out of it. Any suggestion what is this part and it is hard to change it? Thank you.

 

thats your upper ball joint. buy a new one from autozone or the dealership....and rent a ball joint press tool. not too bad of a job.....with the right tools........air tools and compressor work good too.

 

upper ball joint, the first pic looks like you UCA might be bent. How did it break?

 

that is ur RF upper ball joint. looks like the boot is just torn. if there is excessive play in the ball joint then its for sure busted. if its just leaking then u should be fine. but it will eventually become contaminated and have to be replaced. atleast its still holding together. looks like u need to invest in a good set of UCA's!!

 

uca looks normal.....just took mine off for my tc uca's this weekend......they are made with that little crook to the left.

 

I broke last month while going through a ditch. By the way what is a UCA?

 

upper control arm.

 

x2 it looks like the grease boot is torn. You have to pull the UCA off to slide the new boot on, you might as well put a new ball joint on. Besides dont know if you can buy just the boot.

 

Looks about how my upper ball joints looked before I replaced them and the UCA.

They really aren't that hard to change out. Not hard as in very few steps, but as mentioned earlier, you really do need the right tools. You can borrow a ball joint press from autozone/checker, which I would also recommend borrowing the 4x4 pieces as well. Then theres a piece called a pitman arm puller which would be helpful if you wanted to try to save the old ball joint. Also, soak the bolts with Penetrating oil over night or longer. (dont waste your time with wd40- get the real stuff)

Personally, I found it a lot easier to just cut the ball joint in half so you have two pieces to work with. It also will allow you to use the heavy c-clamp type press to get everything out so you dont have to mess with the weaker pitman arm puller for the top bolt.

An impact gun helps a ton with the stubborn ball joints with the c-clamp type press.

These ball joints can be in there really tight. Then again, yours may just pop out with out much work, but that hasn't been my experience with any of my ball joints or tie rod ends. I was able to use the pitman arm puller on my passenger tie rod, but broke two of them on the drivers side before I cut that in half and pressed it out as well.