There is not much difference in your 99's front suspension, than my 89
I fully rebuilt mine myself in 2011.
i did not consider the premade control arms with the ball joints and bushings installed. mostly as the reported aftermarket replacements were said to be steel of half the gauge thickness as the original control arms, and the bushing and ball joints preinstalled were of suspect quality.
A few reports of inability to properly align vehicle afterwards.
Removing the upper ball joints, requires a special socket and trememdous amounts of torque. As in a 6 foot breaker bar and two guys pushing on it might not be enough.
Leave control arm attached to vehicle before attempting to unthread upper ball joint
Lower control arm ball joint is pressed in/out. AZs rent a ball joint press was not big enugh, i had to cut off threaded studs to press them out.
I used a 20 ton shop press to get new Knurled ball joints installed and was pulling hard on the hydraulic lever
The control arm bushings, well I drilled out the rubber, some burn it out, then removed the inner collar, then slid a hack saw blade against the outer bushing retainer and scored it, then bent in inward with cold chisel and they fell out.
LCA bushing was able to use AZ ball joint tool to insert, uppers requires same 20 ton shop press.
That said I was in baja in 2006 and had brought new UCA bushings with me and was charged about 45 dollars to do driver's side. Took em about 2.25 hours. They did not appear to have the right tools.
They aligned it by look and feel after replacing. Drove straight, tires wore evenly for 15K more miles, and I did not get a full alignment until I redid the whole front suspension in 2011 .
One can easily mangle the control arms trying to press out old bushings, or pressing them in, but I would rebuild your original control arms rather than going with whatever is available premade.
Moog once had a great name. I am not so sure that is still true unless one gets old stock when it was still made in the USA.
I used XRF ball joints and tie rod ends, Moog problem solver Idler arms, Moog LC and UCa bushings and drag link. Raybestos professional grade might be good to perhaps best available quality. I;ve not researched things lately and who knows what will be in the box anyway these days
The tie rod end and drag link dust boots have been an issue in the subsequent 6 years They split along the seam. I replaced with Energy Suspension polyurethane boots.
ES makes poly UCA and LCA bushings, but one must save the inner collet which rides on the bolt and not screw up the outer bushing casings when burning out/drilling out old rubber, but no press is required, AFAIK, to get the new poly bushings in old bushing housings.
The lower XRF ball joints would not accept grease for a while. When they did the redline CV-2 synthetic grease did not react well( it degelled) with what XRF pumped them full with, and I purged a lot of old grease and do so way more often than required now.
I recommend doing this yourself at home and to sacrifice a new set of tires to get you there, or get the parts and drive to Mexico then come back for an alignment and the quality tires you desire but the ball joints can certainly be suspect too, and could still Schmemmie the new tires.
my upper ball joint socket (OTC 8034) was about 35$.
http://www.tooltopia.com/sunex-tool...tid=SUN10214&gclid=CKPV_4nYm9QCFQ5EfgoduQMIYQ
A large pipe wrench will not work to unthread them The flats to grab are too narrow, and not enough space to get the pipe wrench head on them anyway. Especially if there is any visible rust. My vehicle spent most of its life in florida before my ownership, Little underbody rust.
While waiting for parts I wirebrushed and dental picked the ball joint UCA seam using PB blaster, every day for a week. I tried the large pipe wrench, i tried to weld up my own socket, then when I bought the special ball joint socket, as apparently no one in southern California has one, I needed about a 4 foot breaker bar before they busted loose with just me pulling on it, and yes i did wind up on my back when they let loose.
When i rebuilt my front suspension in 2011, I left in the UCA bushings I had installed in Baja in 2006, as they were still good. They are Moog.
Within a few months of the rebuild, one of the bolts holding my UCA onto the read end of pivot bar had loosened back up. Weird tire wear of the new tire on that wheel caused the inspection which revealed this fault,
After alignment, I recommend a drop of loctight on these nuts.
