Torn upper ball joint boots..how hard to replace them?

[nhdoc]

I noticed both of my upper ball joint boots were torn in my '88 560SL, the damage is fresh and the BJs seem OK. I know the boots are available from MB so my question is...how hard is it to replace them? Do I need to remove the entire upper control arm or can I just remove the nut, remove the BJ from the spindle using a pickle fork and repack and replace the boot that way with no further disassembly? Anyone done this? I'd rather not wait until the joints go bad and then have to spend $300-$400 each for new control arms with the new joints if I can save these.