Replacing Upper Control Arms (Write-Up)

J

J

OCCUPY LoD :)
Barry came over the other day because he needed me to help him replace his driver's side upper control arm. He took his car in for an alignment and they said they would NOT align it with a bad ball joint.

So here we go......

First jack up the front (or in my case, just the driver side) of the car. Barry's is a Gen 2 but the Gen 1's are the same. Next remove the wheel and remove the air shock using this link.... Removing Driver Side Strut


Once the shock is removed, you'll have access to the two bolts securing the control arm to the strut tower. Notice the "flags" that are protruding off the heads of the bolts. Removing these will make your life much easier. I used a long prybar to pop off the flags. One side came off SUPER easy, the other...not so much.





Next, you're going to use a 18MM ratchet wrench and a 19MM box end to "double wrench" the nut loose. Stick the 18MM down next to the master cylinder and then stick the 19MM on the end of the 18MM wrench for extra leverage. You'll get maybe two clicks at a time. Once you've loosened it enough, grab your impact ratchet and go to town!





The other side is easy to get to.



Once you have the nuts completely loose, just carefully pull your 18MM ratchet wrench up, making sure the nut stays inside the end of the wrench (so you don't LOSE it). Leaving the bolts in place, loosen and remove the upper control arm to spindle bolt.



Remove the spindle and then remove the two bolts that are now hanging up the control arm.



Upon installing the new arm, MAKE SURE you don't tighten the arm-to-strut tower bolts until the suspension is loaded. This will prevent the bushings from "spinning" inside the control arm. Kinda what/where the control should look like/be positioned.
 
J

J

OCCUPY LoD :)
So, as misleading as that picture is. You now have to take off the liner too...AND figure out how to get the bolt out with the strut housing in the way.

If you know the tricks Jeremi DON'T just post a picture.
 
DLF

DLF

New member
I don't remove the shock either, just remove the solenoid to deflate the bag, remove the three upper nuts, and pull it down and pivot it out of the way. Far too much trouble to mess with the lower shock bolt.
 
Mad1stGen

Mad1stGen

Booster
Come on Jesse, you gotta try harder. Misleading picture ? The liner ? boohoo ... 1 screw, 3 clips, and it's out of the way (doesn't have to be removed completely, I think I was cleaning them on that car) ... clean the bottom of the fender cavity while you have it out to avoid water and debris accumulating in there.

Obviously the shock doesn't have to come out either. Look close. If you release the upper ball joint first, all you need to remove is the top three nuts, and swing it out of the way. I usually leave the bag pressurized, but perform at your own risk ;)

That picture is all that's needed. Since 2001. :)
 
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B

billcu

Head Moderator
Everyone has their own methods I guess.:)

I use the access hole, leaving the flags on the bolts.

I've always completely removed the air spring/shock assembly, only because I never had to replace the UCA by itself, my cars needed the LCA too.:)
 
Roadboss

Roadboss

On Work Release
I actually enlarged the hole some and then ran edge guarding around the hole to protect the cruise control cables, and also only unbolt the three top bolts on the air spring.
 
F

frankjc

New member
I grabbed that nut down under the m/c with a long breaker bar, and loosened it from the bolt side with a ratchet. I think I may have disconnected that big ass connector by the m/c for extra room, I can't remember.
 
J

J

OCCUPY LoD :)
Wirelessly posted (LOUD NOISES!: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Well, before everyone jumps down my throat. Maybe consider the newbs that don't know anything about cars and they see a picture of a ratchet sticking out of a hole. How the F is someone supposed to learn anything from that....especially IN a WRITE-UP thread?

Oh wait...too late.
 
B

bmergner

New member
J, thanks for the extra time u spent with writing this up and adding pics. different strokes for different folks, everyone does things different......... and leave it at that..
 
N

NetKeym

New member
Wow, I just happened to be rebuilding my front end and somebody pointed me to this thread. That access hole is a lifesaver! Thank you druggles85 & Mad1stGen!
 
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