Just wanted to drop a thanks in here for the help and advice.
Last week I finished the 'second' part of this and the car has been great driving since. No awful creaks or clunks, buttery smooth steering which feels a little lighter than before which is cool.
It's nice to drive without the thought of an accident in the back of my mind caused by a failing suspension component.
The third part will be the inner and outer tie rods. I opted to do this in stages as I found myself running into enough hurdles limiting it to just the lower ball joints, UCAs and shocks. I need my car and it's only a matter of 5 mins to get the car jacked up and wheels off and then I'm back where I left off. I checked the tie rods while in there and they are solid and not making any noise.
Driver's side took 5 days owing to needing various tools I didn't have and having to wait for a ride into town each morning. Passenger side was done in half a day with time to spare.
I thought it might be helpful for future readers to put a few of the hurdles and solutions I had here:
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Driver's side upper control arm bolts (mainly the one closer to middle of car) are extremely awkward owing to hard fuel lines. Some maintain you CAN get the factory bolt out in one piece. I'm sure it's true but I would recommend not wasting your time and hurting your fingers. Get yourself a small angle grinder and kill it. The camber adjustment bolt kits have the plate separate from the bolt itself and go in easy enough.
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Regarding camber adjust kit bolts - The smaller washers go inside the adjuster plate. They should be sandwiched inside, between the frame mounts and plates. Good video here NOTE - the thumbnail is actually wrong on the left bolt.... :
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I did this without touching the brakes - It's possible with 2WD if you know your rotors and wheel bearings are good. You will need to pull the outer tie rods from the knuckle, however. If doing this, you will also need to fasten the ball joint press when removing and installing the LBJ on the passenger side. The torque will twist the press clamp clockwise around and start to push the knuckle in a way that can cause it to fall and damage the brake line.
I got the press started all the way anti-clockwise so it's touching the forward facing part of the lower control arm, and tied a tow rope around the torsion bar and through the clamp several times. This held tight enough while I was putting probably close to 200+ lbft into it while forcing out the old ball joint.
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Ball joint press correct adaptor kit - I originally only got the press itself from Autozone. Turns out, for the factory lower control arms at least, you also need an adaptor kit. It has a receiver adaptor that has a kind of crescent cut out of it so it can fit beneath the LBJ properly and not block it. If working with the brakes in place, you'll proabably also need one of the shallow caps circled in blue in the pic.
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Pickle fork - I smashed and smacked on the knuckle to get it free from the old LBJ and it didn't want to come. Get a pickle fork on loan and make it a 20 second job separating the two.
I think that's it. If I remember any other tricky bits I'll add.
Worn out parts gore below...
