Gen 2.5 Front End

[All-Terrain]

One of the 158k-mile ball joints on my '99 has a torn boot. Considering buying a set of ball joints, upper and lower, for both sides of the truck, and just replacing them all at the same time.

Any reason not to buy the ball joints separately? Or should I buy the complete control arms?

Also are the CV boots replaceable? I don't see them on RockAuto unless I'm looking in the wrong spot.

Thanks!

 

[Salonika]

If the control arms are still tight, no reason to change them imo. My uppers were loose at 195,000 miles so I replaced those, but lowers were tight so I left them alone. Did all 4 ball joints. I also did steering hardware at the same time. I had it aligned after my work with zero issues.
As for the CV joints, my local parts shop offers that as a service, but I just put in all new. I kept my Mitsu ones though, in case I need them in the future. I think you can buy kits to do them yourself though. One word of warning, the nuts and bolts that came with my ball joints were junk, I stripped them when I tried to torque them. I ended up reusing the factory nuts and bolts on the ball joints.

 

[TheMole]

Check if the bushings on the arms are worn. If not, then you can probably just replace the balljoints.

 

[SONICMASD]

Thats weird, i heard from several sources that you cannot replace just the upper ball joints because of the way they are pressed in to the control arms. Well, technically you can get some special bushings from Australia to reuse your UCAs but those cost more than replacing the UCAs which come with ball joints installed.

Im due for this job too so i should have more info soon.


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