I was quoted $900 for the ball joints/alignment. Feh.

I bought the tool on Amazon for $130, Ball joints (Moog) for another $150 and spent 1 day replacing them. I then spent another $600 on all the tie rods/ends, shocks, stabilizer & brackets, etc. and installed them the next (1/2) day. For the same ~ $900 outlay, plus a weekend wrenching, I now have a van that steers as new, or even better (added the stabilizer ya know! )!

I'm a pro motorcycle wrench, with limited car facilities. I did this in the driveway, with a creeper and a jack. Easy stuff, really. Total time investment about 10 hours, total and $70 to align it.

 

You can rent the balljoint press from AutoZone for free in the US. Doing the work makes you feel all manly, pride in a job well done, and adds confidence that you can fix whatever happens to your vehicle. Once you rebuild the engine, nothing scares you anymore.

 

you almost got it right
once you rebuild the engine, nothing except the transmission scares you anymore. once you've rebuilt both, nothing but the idea of setting up a rearend scares you anymore.

 

Transmission rebuilds don't scare me, all of my older vans have an e4od from BTS. Rearends are pretty straight forward on older vans (I.E. Ford 8.8) other than dicking with pinion depth, which is some sort of black magic as far as I can tell.

The furthest I have ever been into an e4od is down to the overdrive frictions, and that's as far as i ever intend to go

 

My problem is, as a tool junkie, renting tools makes no sense to me. Luckily, as a professional mechanic, I can usually justify my addiction

If I keep the van, the tool will come in handy in another 100k or so. If I sell the van, I'll sell the tool too. Either way, I'm OK with it.