My 99 is starting to get some miles on it, at 150k right now. I've been noticing some squirrelly handling sometimes, and occasionally a bit of a clunk if I'm making a turn just right and hitting a bump. Also noticed my tires are wearing on the insides a lot more than the outsides so thought perhaps its the balljoints or something (yes I do rotate them about 5k). Been holding off doing much about it all summer since I was driving the new truck. Well I started driving the 99 again when winter hit, was going to take a good look at it as soon as my garage was finished. Well took half the winter to finish, just parked it in there for the first time last week. Just tonight I got ambitious and got the jack out and this is what I have found so far:

The inner rubber boot on the front axle passenger side is completely separated and I can see the shaft inside. On the drive side it must be leaking because it was all covered in oil and you could see it had sprayed the immediate area with oil as well. This is unrelated to the problems I thought I had, but how serious is this? Well I be ok driving it around for a couple more weeks as long as I dont use 4x4? Or am I already causing damage? I noticed both tires spun the front axle, is this normal or are the auto hubs also shot?

Moving on, I pulled on the tires every which way. I noticed some play in side to side in the steering, mainly on the passanger side tire. Tracked it down to the thingy that attaches to the frame on the pass side and has a little arm that goes out and connects to the steering rod (sorry I dont know the technical terms here). What it appears to be doing is allowing the steering rod that goes from one side to the other, to go up and down slightly. So for example when I try and rotate the pass tire inward instead of sliding that rod horizontally towards the driver side it flexes upwards first and seems to allow the pass tire to go in and out a little before actually moving the steering arm. I assume this is not normal and will need replacing.

As far as ball joints or anything else I'm not totally sure. When trying to rock the tire on the top and bottom there wasnt much play... but there was a tiny amount on both wheels. If you pushed it sharp and hard you could feel it move just slightly before stopping and make a small thud. Best way to describe it is if the lug nuts were ever so slightly loose like say 1 thread or less. Is that normal?

I should also mention I do have the torsion bars cranked up a bit under 2" higher for about 50k now. But I wonder if my treadwear might just be from the torsion bars wearing out and sagging a little more, since the only thing that really stood out to me was the bit of steering play.

Sorry for the length, and thanks for any advice...