LCA ball joint question

Just crawled up under the truck and noticed a lot of grease coming out of my LBJ on the drivers side. my guess is just a torn boot but after searching around, it looks like they are SOB to replace. any advice on how bad this looks or what the best course of action is? is it worth just taking it to a shop to have done or is this something i can do for a lot less?

 

The lower a arm isn't too bad to remove...but taking the ball joint itself off is a pain. I had to heat mine up and go to town on it with an impact. You will need an alignment when it's completed

 

XXXX had a good walkthrough of it on here with pics and everything. I just bought a Moog replacement arms and did it all in one rather than screw with heating and banging but i know the drivers side has been on backorder for a while.

 

Haven't done one with our trucks but recently did a pressed LCA bj in another vehicle and it was definitely a pain. Lots of hammer time and even with a bj press.

 

wouldnt happen to have the link for the new arm would ya? i have a feeling that just replacing the whole thing might be worth the cost rather than trying to bang that thing out. does make me wish Toyota used uni-balls.

 

Seeing that you have snow in your signature and out in NC, you might want to check your LCA cam bolts as well.

 

http://www.carid.com/2010-toyota-tacoma-suspension-parts/?filter=1&manufacturers[0]=830

Out of stock there too. Rock auto used to advertise them but they haven't had any in stock for over a year now that I know of. There's also Mevotech and Dorman LCAs but I don't have any experience with those. Be aware if they salt your roads your adjustment cam bolts might be frozen resulting in having to cut them and purchase new ones(with a good coating of grease). Someone posted greaseable cam bolts on here but it turns out that product is junk.

http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/sku/Toyota/Tacoma/Mevotech/Control_Arm/2006/MEMS861042.html

 

I was thinking more along the lines of the kits not coming with proper parts, last I checked that thread it was still an issue. The rounding of the cams made me stay away from them and thankfully mine came out just fine.

 

im pretty meticulous about keeping salt off the truck, and they dont look to bad but i wont really know until i try to remove them. any ideas on shop labor if i took my LCA and a moog replacement BJ in and told them to do the replacing? assuming i can get the lower control arm off.

 

That was laziness on my part for not checking the thread before I posted. OP still has the options.

 

haha yea you guys have given me way more stuff to research than i thought. i guess main thing is does the picture looks bad enough that i need to get on this tomorrow or can i wait a bit?

 

You should be fine for a bit. It looks like it's just from the grease bulging out the bottom and not a split boot unless there's something we can't see in the pic.

 

OP, did you ever do anything about your ball joint?