So I've decided to turn my car into a daily driver to keep the miles off my new truck. Before I can do this I wanted to do some work on it that's been needed for a little while. I'm replacing brakes pads, rotors, rear shocks, rear coil springs, front and rear sway bar links, and front struts. While doing my drivers side strut I noticed/tore my upper ball joint rubber dust boot. Should I replace the entire ball joint just for the dust boot? The ball joint itself seems to be fine, there is no noticeable wobble or movement in the control arm. The job seems to be kind of a pain to do with it being riveted in or I could replace the whole control arm with the ball joint for like 70 bucks. I'm thinking if I just squeeze some grease in the dust boot I'll be good, just looking for other opinions before I carry through with this idea.

 

Being you are just about redoing the whole suspension, I personally would change all the ball joints. It is not really that hard, drill out the rivet heads, and the replacements are made to be bolted in. To make things easier pop out the tie rod ends before removing the rivets.

 

Are you sure your rear springs need replacing? Are they sagging? If not, you're probably fine. Which shocks are you considering? Which year and which engine?

I too would just replace the ball joints while you're in there... You should also consider the lower control arm bushings depending on mileage -- when mine were done on my RS, it was hugely noticeable how much better the car tracked afterwards, and the bushings were all cracked/separated from being a DD already...

You might want to get the full kit...
Strano Performance Parts - Part Details

 

I would replace the ball joints also, how many miles are one this car?

 

if you go moog shop around, you can get those way cheaper than that link above.

 

So i decided to go ahead and change both lower and upper ball joints on both sides. I haven't even touched the right side yet but that driver side lower really kicked my ***. It took me about 10 attempts to get it in straight and it never did make a sound like it popped in but it looks like it is fully seated now. Then the dust boot was a pain trying to get it to seat as well. I bought a cheap air hammer with chisel from harbor freight for like 13 buck and the air hammer itself seems to be great but the chisel adapter is apparently made out of softer metal than the rivets used to hold the upper in place, but I finally got it out.

 

I'm just doing Gabriel shocks/struts and Duralast products all the way around. This is going to be a daily driver don't really need anything performance wise right now and Duralast has never failed me.