One of my tie rod ball joint boots seems to have broken, or melted, or come out of place, or something. There is still rubber there, but I can look down the open top of it and see black grease.

The manual says it requires a "special tool" to install a new boot. And I would need to have the alignment checked/redone I assume.

I have a couple of track days left this month and then I was going to do some major work on the car anyway. I would prefer to wait to fix this until after those track days.

Three questions:

Anybody here ever done this job at home?

Any reasonable temporary fix available? (eg. tape to keep dirt out of the grease)

What's the downside of waiting a few weeks to get it fixed?

 

I've replace these boots on other cars before but not yet on an S2000. You have to separate the ball joint to get the boot off and on. Leaving it too long will most likely require you to replace the joint. Once dirt and grit get into the grease, it will act like sandpaper.