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How-to change lower control arms



joe0813 said:
be careful on the bolt with the torx bit.... some strip out... and some like on mine freeze to the bushing and wont come out. when this happens what i did was cut the bolt with my snap on straight cut off wheel and then go to a hardware store and got a grade 8 bolt and nut. MAKE SURE ITS A HARDENED STEEL BOLT!!... or if you dont want to cut the bolt... carefully cut the sleeve with a cut off wheel vertical and stick a pry bar in between it so it wont spin on you. But your better off just cutting it on and getting rid of the dumb torx bolt anyway
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I just attempted to change my LCA's and sure enough mine are seized in the sleeves. I'm going to cut them out and get some new bolts without the torx head. Other than grade 8, what are the specs for the nut and bolt? Also, what type of blade do I need for my reciprocating saw to cut it out?
 
Go grade 10 or better. You are going to need a serious blade...those are hard bolts.

I'd soak the hell outta them with pb/whatever for a day and keep pounding at them here and there to free them up.
 
Angle grinder with a cut-off wheel might work better here. I've never found a great quality metal blade for the recip saw, you may go through multiple blades sawing off these bolts.

Before that, how big of a breaker bar have you tried using?
 
I was able to cut thru the bolt. I only dulled two blades. The size of the bolt is M14-2.00 90mm. I used a metric 10.9 grade bolt which is the equivalent of a grade 8. I also decided to upgrade the sway bar while I was at it. There's a huge difference in the tightness of the steering. Glad I did it.
 


i would recommend cutting the bolt that is on the front bushing of the control arm--the one closest to the front of the car--if you cant get it out with a breaker bar and and a cheater bar. i know the last post on this was a year ago, but i did this job yesterday. its not a complicated job, but i decided to read the forum this morning to see what it said as i had a heck of a time getting that bolt out. it took two hours of heating and banging on it. i actually split the end of the cheater bar i was bashing on to get this bolt out. i put the cheater bar through the top of the hood and bashed down on that bolt very hard repeatedly. the only reason i didnt cut it is because i was in the middle of nowhere and i didnt have a replacement bolt. absolutely buy the above mentioned bolt before you do this job just in case you need it while on site; and have several good sawzall blades. the factory bolt is thick and hard as is the sleeve around it (that is what the bolt is seized to).
 
i did the other side today and it was easy. no issues at all. just wacky how that works. it might have been replaced at some point, though.
 
tdm571 said:
I was able to cut thru the bolt. I only dulled two blades. The size of the bolt is M14-2.00 90mm. I used a metric 10.9 grade bolt which is the equivalent of a grade 8. I also decided to upgrade the sway bar while I was at it. There's a huge difference in the tightness of the steering. Glad I did it.
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I'm getting ready to do this job on my '06 GP base. Does anyone know all the bolt sizes for the LCA? I'd like to replace them all when I swap them out but would like to have them on hand. The car is my daily drive so I'm not running to the store once I start tearing things apart.
 
21 mm iirc. you can turn the wheels to do a check before starting the job. you will also need a torx t55 on some cars, check the bolt head for a star inside it.
 


Thanks. Why they used a torx bolt I'll never know. Surprised too that new bolts don't come with the arm...I'm in Massachusetts and everything under there is rusted and fused.
 
super rust. good chance they will still be ok. wont know till you try. spray the threads, bolt heads and nuts with penetrating oil for a few days before the job. (every night) PB blaster and such. will help out in the long run.
 


Appreciate it...just finding this thread was a huge help. Rides an '06 with 112k so everything is starting to go. One of the rear struts died a spectacular death the other day...so that's next.
 
I used this write up and it made everything SO much easier! And for the rust bolts I just used a fair amount of wd-40 and they all came off pretty easily. I have a 98 that's seen every Buffalo winter since then and they were rusty but i didn't break or have to cut anything.
 
Finished the job last night and it all went well. Thanks to Dsmuts for the thread! One question for anyone out there: I installed the Dorman LCA'a with the sway bar mount but still have the original type sway bar with end links mounting to the strut. The sway bar had been replaced by the former owner and looks of good quality so I didn't want to switch it out. Anyway, the mount on the LCA is pretty close to the end link where it mounts to the sway bar. Has anyone out there run their car this way? Any issues where the mount & link come in contact?
 
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