okay i just had an inspection at my local mechanics and he told me that my passenger upper is very dangerously worn and my drivers bottom is getting there he quoted me 300ish for both. i talked to my dad and he said we can prob be it by ourselves. i was wondering how hard they are to replace i know my mechanic said that the front half shaft would have to get removed to replace the lower one. do i need any special tools. how hard are they to replace. would i still need to get an allignment after i replace them

 

No tools out of the ordinary other than a pickle fork. If they are stock joints then you'll need to pop off some rivets. (That's the hard/$hitty part) Plan on it taking a while just because something always seems to go wrong, but it's really not that difficult. (It took me 40 hours to do ball joints, tie rods, pitman and idler arm) Like I said, the rivets are the worst.

 

agreed, more of a p.i.t.a. job then difficult.
just follow torque guidelines and dont cheap out on the joints, or you will get good at replacing them....just saying.

 

Pop off the spindle,grind down the rivets,replace the ball joint,put hub back on.

 

whats a good brand?

 

Moog or TRW..

 

Moog. trw seems to be ok. But go with moog or ac delco. yea,count on it being $50 apiece. You can get the 20.00 ones,but have fun replacing em once a year or sooner.


edit : dammit twiz beat me to it. lol

 

Teeheehee...lol..

But like chris said.. count on around 50 bucks a pop... the cheap ones are just that.. cheap.. even if there moog or trw's.. putting the lil extra cash into the higher quality parts will save u money in the long run... i threw cheapos in my old mustang several years ago and i was back to replacing them after only 8 months.... bought the expensive set and sold the car with them still functioning (about 3 years later)

 

okay thanks all. what about having to decompress the shock is that needed or no. how hard is it to remove the half shaft

 

does that book help. uh i cant think of the name of hte maker but i have one for my firebird they sell it in all the car part stores. does that book have a walk through for it