replacing upper control arm with pics

[trouttrooper]

I know this topic has been covered a lot, but I'm a visual guy and love seeing pics. Trouble is I've never been able to find any that showed what needed to be bent.

At any rate, the tools I used.

21 mm open end/box end wrench
15 mm wrench and socket
hammer
large flat blade screwdriver
channel lock pliers

The passenger side was a piece of cake for me. I was able to do everything from the wheel well and only had to remove the tire. The driver side is where the issue is because the one bolt hits the sheet metal.

I started by removing the plastic fender well Not sure if it's completely necessary, but it made better access to the metal that needed bending. Fairly easy to do, just remove all the push pins and wrestle the whole thing out.

[sharedmedia=gallery:images:325]

Next was to remove the 15 mm bolt and nut holding the control arm to the spindle. I used my large screwdriver as a wedge and hammered it into the slit to open it up a little, then tapped the control arm off. I then tied the spindle so it wouldn't tip over and pull on the brake line.

[sharedmedia=gallery:images:328]


Here you can see the issue with the rear bolt.

[sharedmedia=gallery:images:326]

The front bolt clears it....barely.


[sharedmedia=gallery:images:327]

I used the box end of the wrench to get started. Once the bolts were loose I switched to the open end side and was able to almost remove the bolts completely. The bolts were loose enough at this point that I could finish removing by hand.

I forgot to take a pic of the bent sheetmetal before putting the plastic fender well back in, but you can see here where the bolt hit the metal, and how I bent it. I used the channel locks to grab the metal and just put some muscle into it.


[sharedmedia=gallery:images:329]

That's it. Took me about 1 1/2 hours by the time all said and done.

 

[Ed H]

Pictures definitely help.

 

[Rogue92]

Thanks for posting this! Much more helpful with photos. What was the reason for replacing the UCA? Just curious so I know what to look out for...

 

[trouttrooper]

For me it was painfully obvious. When I replaced the upper ball joints I noticed that I could rock my tire back and forth by holding it at 12 and 6, while it was still on the ground, and saw the upper control arms move all around. Ended up driving like that for awhile because I had only bought upper ball joints and tie rod ends to replace at that time. They also made a lot of clicking and clunking noises. The old bushings literally fell out of the old control arms once I had the bolts out. I have about 175,000 miles.

 

[dmccarthy]

For me it was painfully obvious. When I replaced the upper ball joints I noticed that I could rock my tire back and forth by holding it at 12 and 6, while it was still on the ground, and saw the upper control arms move all around. Ended up driving like that for awhile because I had only bought upper ball joints and tie rod ends to replace at that time. They also made a lot of clicking and clunking noises. The old bushings literally fell out of the old control arms once I had the bolts out. I have about 175,000 miles.

Cannot access the pictures. Where can I find them?????

 

[Capote]

Cannot access the pictures. Where can I find them?????

Site used to have a member gallery for uploaded pictures, doesn't exist anymore unfortunately. So old threads like this with pictures in the gallery got lost.