darn wish I looked at this b4 I did mine hehe. Its a lot easier to see what your talking about if you had pictures though. took me a while to figure out what was all going on when I did it. I didn't use any special tool to take it out though I just used pliers. Good write up though. I did it without taking the chassis plate too but I guess it makes it easier to get your tools and hands in there if you did. Its a bit cramped in there.

if anyone is looking for the ball joint popper tool of all the auto stores I went to in my area AutoZone had it. its call a tie rod something tool looks like a 2 finger claw with a bolt in the middle its a very nice tool. Whatever you do don't hit the tie rod bolt with a hammer (you have to hit that mofo hard too) it messes up the threads and makes it a bitch to put it back on especially since it has that hole for the pin in it, I did that when I did my rebuild O_o. If you absolutely can't find one of those tools you can use a pickle fork to pop it out but you damage the ball joint while your at it so the other tool is much better.

Don't know how long mine were worn but my car has 100k on it and it was worn out just from old age I guess. The boots were still fine.

also if you ever want to have your car aligned its a good time to check if the inner tie rods are worn by trying the turn the actual wheel back and forth your self with it on the ground, if there's any play your tie rods are worn. That way you kill two birds with one stone.

http://www.hadesomega.info -car specz and movies 95 Eclipse RS | 76' 280Z | 89' MR2 | 99 Neon | 91 Zephyr
Who sez FF can't drift?