PM terryford8 and he will share with you his experience. If you want to do it yourself see http://www.energysuspension.com/universal-products/tie-rod-end-dust-boots.html
Are the 2-bolt control arms still fairly cheap? If so I would just place the whole thing if there is an issue with the ball joint, this way one also gets new bushings in the control arm.
You did the right thing, replacing the control arms, as at 160K miles (or km's?), the inner bushings were shot. I suspect the ball joint boots will hold together for at least a few years. I wouldn't take apart the suspension again to put on the ES boots, especially if there's some question about whether or not they'll fit properly.
Are the 2-bolt control arms still fairly cheap? If so I would just place the whole thing if there is an issue with the ball joint, this way one also gets new bushings in the control arm.
There aren't any bushings or pivot points in the Contour front suspension (either 2 or 4-bolt LCA's) that will be sensitive to ride height preload when the bolts are being torqued.I had originally been a dummy and overlooked the minor detail of torquing all the LCA bolts and BJ bolt with the wheel on (ride level height)..not sure if that messed anything else but I did go back and unbolt and retorque everything and some noise went away but still something unhappy on my front end - mostly the driver side
There aren't any bushings or pivot points in the Contour front suspension (either 2 or 4-bolt LCA's) that will be sensitive to ride height preload when the bolts are being torqued.
The Contour rear suspension is another matter, the outboard bushings in the lateral links and the trailing link are in axial shear and therefore should be torqued with the suspension at normal ride height. I do this by putting a jack under the knuckle and raising it to ride height before torquing bolts. These bushings don't have enough stiffness to affect ride height if torqued in the wrong position, but it will probably prolong bushing life if done right.
The front noise you're hearing when turning may be an upper strut bearing, these are known to get full of road dirt and water and get noisy and draggy. If you're going to replace struts, using new upper mounts and bearings is strongly encouraged.
On the Ford ball joint kits I have for the 2-bolt arm, A=0.740", B runs 1.76" to 1.83" dia, as it's tapered. Looks like the largest ES unit, 9.13119, might stretch to fit?
FWIW, RockAuto has ball joint kits for 99 Contour 2-bolt arms for $7 to $8 each, maybe buy the kit, throw away the ball joint and keep the boot?
Prob I have experienced is that NEW LCA's with BJ's displayed cracking BJ boots in less than 4k miles!!!! Why replace the whole LCA when poly (or good quality replacement boots such as MOOG) will address this issue? This assumes the BJ's are not contaminated and thus need replacement (in which case your logic is "spot on").