Sequence to Replace Upper Bushings?

RRoller123 · Post by **RRoller123** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 7:19 am

There must be (I hope) a simple process to replace just the upper control arm bushings without taking this whole gd assembly apart?

Can someone who has done this safely summarize the steps? I really don't want to take the entire thing apart again, but if so I guess I will have to. Got about 6-7000 miles out of this set, and I will pay far more attention to the LADEN requirement this time when I torque up the replacements.

Thanks.

Pete

AriK · Post by **AriK** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 8:23 am

Upper control arm is a breeze. It's held on by the balljoint on one end and the shock tower on the other. The coil spring is totally independent from that component. Consider urethane so that it's the last time you do them.

RRoller123 · Post by **RRoller123** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 10:01 am

But still have spring compressed force to deal with?

So, support under crossmember, Let suspension system hang, remove wheel, remove brakes, remove shock, install spring compressor and then break the top ball joint and remove the top control arm? Does that make sense?

I hate it when this stuff occurs in the middle of car season, but we can't control that, and of course, it occurs in the season because that is when the cars are driven and we see the symptom!

Pete

AriK · Post by **AriK** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:59 pm

No. The upper control arm has no compressed force with the spring. The spring sits inside the shock tower not the control arm.

RRoller123 · Post by **RRoller123** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 3:51 pm

DOH! of course!

I have just now completed the job, but it is only temporary, by adding more washers to the stack, and a new nylock nut. (remember the bolt/thread length issue a few years back....) I put the floor jack under the bottom ball joint to keep everything happy. New bolt and nut coming overnight from AR. The stack had loosened and thus buggered up the bolt threads so the nut wasn't torqueing properly. Was too loose, and everything was banging around on a bump or pothole.

Pete

PatTroy · Post by **PatTroy** » Fri Jul 29, 2016 8:43 am

Pete, glad you got your answer! Hopefully you won't mind a post-mortem threadjack!

AriK, do you know what suspension package that is in image??? These look like the business!

AriK · Post by **AriK** » Fri Jul 29, 2016 11:55 pm

The image was a Google search. No idea, someone else may recognize his own car.

Sequence to Replace Upper Bushings?

Sequence to Replace Upper Bushings?

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