OK, I goofed I have not done a lot of wheeling since MOAB so I have been amiss on maintenance.

This weekend I am going to visit Abiel in Laredo and my alignment seemed bad. I took it in to have it checked.

They got it up and discovered BAD STUFF. My upper and lower ball joints are shot as are the Tie Rod ends.He dais I'm LUCKY I'm not dead Since I have after market steering and UCAs he did not have part numbers. I am currently back at work and need to call him with part numbers. Here is what I have found. If you have additional info please let me know

Calmini Steering ends:
ES409R

Tie Rods uses:
Moog ES3661 outer TRE
Moog ES3660 inner TRE

I have the AC Upper Control Arms:
85-97 Nissan Pathfinder upper ball joint works

The stock Lower Control arm:
uses the 2000-2004 Frontier replacement ball joint after removing the big nut that holds it on. NAPA part# NCP2601596

I need to have them do the work so I will be ready for Fridays trip.

THANKS IN ADVANCE !!!!

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I recently needed an alignment and took it in. They said I needed upper ball joints,lower ball joints, idler arm (I have Calmini),upper a-arm bushings and wheel bearings.They wanted $500.
I repacked the wheel bearings as the bearings were still good, replaced the AC UCA bushings, replaced upper ball joints and replaced the aftermarket bushings in the Calmini idler arm. All told I spent less than $200 on the front end and it is aligned perfectly. I have 90k miles on the AC kit. The part #'s you show are correct. I do however have a hard time believing that your lower ball joints are bad too. My recommendation would be to repack the wheel bearings and do the upper ball joints and then check for play with the tire off the ground.

I must have missed this in the past. (Time to do some searching) I wasn't aware you could replace the LCA ball joint. I thought it was all one piece. Anyone who's done this care to detail out the process. I think I need to replace mine as well. Thanks.

Erik

Yeah Erik - that's a relatively recent development... I don't know anyone who has actually replaced them, though.

This was posted on another board

Quick how to on Ball joint.

Ok. Here's what you need to do:

1) Take off the CV shaft (now that you have one installed...). Don't even think about trying to remove the BJ w/o taking off the CV; it won't work.

2) Remove the ball joint from the spindle.

3) Grind 3 tabs off that lock the nut into place. (This is why you MUST remove the CV shaft; can't get to the tabs any other way).

4) Unscrew nut, then press out BJ w/ a hammer & some finesse.

5) Press in new BJ. Get it in as far as possible.

6) put a flat washer around the BJ threads, and then pull the BJ through all the way w/ the nut. You want the washer there because if you don't, when you tighten down the nut, you have very, very good odds of scraping the LCA all to hell and back as you pull the BJ completely into place. Not good. If by some miracle you bressed the BJ in all the way to begin with, you won't need to do this.

7) remove the nut, remove the washer, then put the nut back on and tighten it down.

Attach BJ to spindle. Replace CV shaft.

Piece of cake...