I have seen others on here that have improvised on the upper joint socket. I think you can get em cheap enough though. You may want to get one if you plan on doing this to your dart too, you can always resell it when done.
I could just buy the special socket, they're not too much, but all I need to do is install new ball joints in empty UCA's. I will not need to ever remove an old UBJ during this whole project, so I may be able to get by...
Are you using the lower arms that were powdercoated? Are the tapered holes full of powdercoat? If so, probably tape off the rest of the arm, and sandblast inside the taper to clean it out.
Agreed. And the powder coat job on the rest of the stuff looks nice. Odd that he would not get it all done at once. Maybe thats the exact moment he ran out of time/money/motivation on his project.