figured it out

one of my problems that i posted about alittle while ago, well i finally figured it out today. both the upper ball joints are bad. there is just a little bit of play in them. so heres my new questions. how soon should i change them? i dont have a lot of money. what are some risks of driving on them for say a month? (i put about 70 miles on my car aday)and if i have to do them really soon, how hard are they to change? will i have to remove the coil spring and shock? or can they be changed with them still in there? any help is greatly appriaciated. Thanks for all te help so far and please keep it comming. Jess

Changing them is not too bad. You have to replace the whole a-arm and getting to the bolt that is on the drivers side rear fender well that holds the trailing arm can be a real pita. The arms run in the neighborhood of $100 a side and a good alignment should be done after they're replaced. It only takes about 30 minutes a side. You have to jack up the car, remove the tire and rim, remove the 2 bolts that hold the arms to the fender wells and remove the nut that holds the ball joint to the spindle assembly. It's good to have a big hammer to get the joint out of the spindle. Worst case scenario from having a ball joint fail completely is loss of steering control, and the car will fall onto the tire and cause damage the fender. Quite a few posts over on tccoa.com about this.

Do ball joints completely fail that easily? or am i pretty safe for the mean time you think? it will be at least 2 weeks before i can afford the parts if i feel brave enough to do the job myself. it might be a month before i can get someone to go it for me. im really worried about this.whats your opinion on the nature of the ball joints on these cars? are they pretty hardy or should i hurry and ge tthem changed?

If it was an end link I'd say drive it til it breaks. I won't tell you to or not to drive it with bad ball joints, personal opinion.

thats fair enough. thanks for the help guys. im gonna try and get them replaced somtime in the next two weeks. i hope they can take the abuse till than. agian thanks for the help. Jess