Upper ball joint replacement

[juggernaut2874]

My '02 Explorer EB has both front upper ball joint dust boots cracked. Can these dust boots be replaced or does the whole ball joint need to be replaced. Can the ball joint be pressed out of the control arm or does the entire upper control arm assembly have to be replaced?

 

[drmoore71]

I know they are different generations, but on my '00, I had to replace the whole upper control arm assy. for the lower, I was able to replace just the ball joint. Neither were too hard to do, just expensive. Good luck to you.

doug

 

[juggernaut2874]

My upper ball joints were able to be replaced. My X was built in July 2002. Advance Auto parts sold me upper ball joints for $33.00 each and I had to go to Autozone to get one of their ball joint press "loaner" tool kits. The replacement job was pretty easy and straightforward per the Haynes manual and took about two hours using hand tools. Ford wanted $150.00 each for the upper control arm assembly so this saved me around $230.00 bucks. I checked my alignment afterwards and all is good to go.