ball joint replacement

Howdy Y'all!

Hope everyone's halloween was fricken off the hook!

On to business:

Went 4wheelin the other day, was kind of hard on my truck (had a potential girlfriend in the passenger seat, and she likes to go fast....)

Anyways, we went out to lunch the other day, and while she was in the rest room, i crawled up in my wheel well, and looked things over

the upper ball joint on the passenger side tore the dust boot and is leaking grease all over the place.

is this something i can repair myself? do i need a whole new ball joint? i don't recall selling just the dust boots when i worked for pepboys..

am i going to need any special tools? and should i replace them both? i remember a recall on my years ball joints, but toyota gave me the runaround when i tried to cash in... was it the uppers? should i get in their ass again?

i know i have a lot of questions... just getting ready for a big maintenance overhaul: Brakes, rotors, shoes, rear wheel seals, maybe wheel bearings, Clutch, possibly the slave cylinder, tranny and transfer case gear oil, ball joints, shocks, and a few other asthetic upgrades (bed bar, push bar, and other off roady goodies!

 

ha ha yeah what he said..... but yeah you should be able to get just a new boot... the ball joints are actually more difficult to remove then to re-install ...couple sockets,ratchet,pickle fork and a hammer and you will be fine

 

I was lucky enough to have a press to push them out. Word to the wise there is a snap ring that you have to take off first! It may be covered up by grease and dirt...but you want to pry that off first. The recall (I think it was actually just a TSB) was for the lowers. Toyota charged me $35.67 each for new OEM ones (with boot of course).

 

control arms eh?? what are the benefits? cost?