upper ball joint dust boot replacement

[bavism]

While poking around this weekend I noticed one of my dust boots on my upper control arm is starting to tear. There is still grease on the inside and I don't appear to be having any trouble with my ball joints so my thought is if I can replace the boot and lube the inside, I feel like I might be able to extend the life of my ball joint and avoid having to replace the ball joint or the entire upper arm.

So one question is whether or not anyone has done this before and are replacement boots available? I think I've found some options from energy suspension that are not specifically made for the 2003 expedition, but are based on measurements of the shaft.

Assuming I can find a suitable dust cover, does anyone know the steps to get access to the upper ball joint? Will I have to mess with removing any other components to gain access, or can I just support the vehicle, remove the wheel, and then loosen the nut on the upper ball joint. and then separate the upper ball joint with a pickle fork. It looks like this is all I would have to do, but I'm wondering if I would need to loosen or remove anything else to allow me to separate the ball joint.

Would an alignment be necessary after this procedure?

Any advice or instructions are appreciated. Thanks.

 

[retrogarage6]

on ebay they sell complete front suspenion fresh up kits with arms, bj's, tie rods, all kinda goodies. not too bad for the price for what it comes with but if you can find a boot repair kit then yea it's easier to do only that.

Jack stand her up, (or on a lift) and be sure to support the lower control arm with a floor jack (pref 3 ton at least) so when you release the knuckle bolts it will not fall down, and watch your speed sensor cable and caliper hose so they dont stretch or come off (they should be ok if you're not taking apart the lower and hub and all but still watch out for it). Be very careful with that step. You gotta hold the bolt/nut (of the joint) with a wrench while unscrewing the nut, and then you can have at it with the boot and see if you can repair it.

But at that point, upper control arm replacement would be the same procedure with 2 more bolts...

 

[k_aimone]

on ebay they sell complete front suspenion fresh up kits with arms, bj's, tie rods, all kinda goodies. not too bad for the price for what it comes with but if you can find a boot repair kit then yea it's easier to do only that.

Jack stand her up, (or on a lift) and be sure to support the lower control arm with a floor jack (pref 3 ton at least) so when you release the knuckle bolts it will not fall down, and watch your speed sensor cable and caliper hose so they dont stretch or come off (they should be ok if you're not taking apart the lower and hub and all but still watch out for it). Be very careful with that step. You gotta hold the bolt/nut (of the joint) with a wrench while unscrewing the nut, and then you can have at it with the boot and see if you can repair it.

But at that point, upper control arm replacement would be the same procedure with 2 more bolts...

The 15yr old part of me can't resist. The kit comes with BJs

 

[stamp11127]

Check youtube to see if the spring would need to be compressed. If so don't remove the control arm bolts until you have compressed the spring.