UCA ball joint replacement help

Turns out both ball joints on my Light Racing UCA's are bad. I found the replacement ball joints but before I order them, how do you change them out? Just take the tire off and disconnect the ball joint from the spindle or is there more to it? I installed my lift myself so I have mechanical experience, just never had to swap ball joints out before and I figured it would give me something to do one weekend.

 

I would like to know this as well. My LR UCA ball joints are a bit loose and need to be replaced. Is it as simple as jacking up the frame, taking the tire out, disconnect the old and reconnect the new ball joint? How long should I expect it to take? Since geometry shouldn't change (just swapping the BJ), do I really need an alignment?

 

IIRC , Fiend did the SPC / LR UCA warranty swap

 

Just disconnect the ball-joint from the knuckle, carefully mark the camber/caster positions and then loosen the one nut attaching the joint to the arm. I would recommend pre-packing the boots on the new ones with quality grease before installing them.

 

Did he swap the complete UCA or just the ball joints? I called SPC yesterday and they will send me the replacement BJ's free of charge. I have about 25K miles on mine and they are pretty loose.

 

I didn't do the warranty swap since I had the UCA's for a few years. The warranty I had was the extended warranty for when I bought the truck and that covered my LCA BJ's.

This is what I did. It literally took longer to jack the truck up and get the tire off and then put the tire back on and downjack than it was to change the BJ

 

Just the ball joints

 

My bad

 

Thanks guys! Now I just have to wait for parts and above freezing temps.

 

What kind would you put in yours? Fixin to be installing a new set on my 08 and would prefer to not play the warranty swap after only 25k. Never had any issues with the ones on the 05 but they didn't see much offroad and this new set won't be doing much offroad stuff either.