If I am understanding what you are describing you are talking about undoing the locking nut half way along in the picture below. If you can do that then I am sure what you describe is best.
On mine, worse on the otherside, these nuts seemed welded together and the guy who tried the original wheel alignment was worried about bending/snapping them if he applied and more force.
Also, if you look in the picture at the end by the gator, the new piece at the top of the picture has a relatively stiff ball joint while the old one just flops down and actually rattles a bit side to side so probably worth replacing both ends I thought.
20161125_113335 by
WCA!, on Flickr