What?!? Eighty plus dollars for a new one instead of trying to fix the one you have???
I have a completely new front end from Master Power brakes. I drove about ten miles to the alignment shop where my buddy was going to align it. When we got it on the machine it wouldn't align on the right side. Closer inspection revealed that the brand new ball joint had pulled away from the brand new upper control arm.
We spent about thirty minutes pulling the arm and cranking the ball joint back into the arm. My buddy put four equally spaced welds around the ball joint, and we put it back together.
That was 500 miles ago and I haven't had a bit of trouble since then. I slipped him an extra $20 for his trouble. I would imagine a muffler or welding shop would do the same thing if you brought the control arm in to them.