Front Upper Control Arm Replacement Questions

R

Robert Crain

Active LVC Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2019
Messages
114
Reaction score
31
Location
New England
Greetings, when replacing the front upper control arms, is there enough clearance to remove the two body bolts or does the strut assembly have to first be removed? Are these two bolts camber bolts that affect alignment? Should these bolts be replaced or can they be reused? Thanks! Rob
 
The times I have replaced the control arm I have had to lower the strut. You might get lucky and have the coils in the right spot so that the bolts will slide between them to remove the bolts, but not likely. You don't need to replace with new bolts.
 
Had to pull my struts. Nothings every easy for me. The bitch I found was not being able to get a torque wrench on the rear bolts. Now I have a popping sound at times and I suspect the upper control arms. I didn't crank the rears supper tight, just bit more than snug. I know this will make some guys here nervous but I couldn't find a way around it.
 
My coils were lined up but the bolts have tabs fitted to them that didn't fit between the coils. Being less experienced, I opted to grind down the tabs a little. Now I know the coils come out pretty easily as long as you can release the bottom bolt. I'd guess you only have to remove the top nuts though to swing it out of the way
 
Jtown said:
Now I have a popping sound at times and I suspect the upper control arms.
Click to expand...

Did you torque the bolts with the car at ride height? If not you may be hearing the bushing being over flexed which likely will shorten it's life considerably.
 
IMG_20190817_172508416.jpg


This is how I torqued my upper rear drivers side control arm. Ratcheting 15mm wrench, 3/8 drive reversible torque wrench with a 3/8 to 1/2 drive adapter, and the formula from post #4.
 
Thanks Jerry. I'll dig back into the rear bolts again. I can't recall if it was on the ground. I'd bet I had the wheel off which of course means no. That piping is definitely from the UC.
 
Well, I installed the passenger side control arm yesterday and of course, it fought me the whole way. The arm bolt was frozen into the knuckle and the end link threads were stripped and corroded. I did have to reposition the shock/ strut assembly to get the control arm out but that was a piece of cake compared to this other stuff. I tightened all of the nuts with the car on the ground and used a crowfoot attached to my torque wrench which seemed to of worked pretty good. The car drives great. The driver's side isn't making any noise yet but the plan is to change that one out before winter. My 03 LS is a daily driver with 156k miles.
 
When I replaced upper and lower control arms, I was able to tighten the bolts with the car still up on the jack and the wheel off. I put another jack under the lower control arm and jacked it up till the car body started to lift a tiny bit. I verified that the center of the spindle was now at the same distance from the top of the fender as it was when it was on the ground. This is more or less what the service manual says to do.
 
joegr said:
When I replaced upper and lower control arms, I was able to tighten the bolts with the car still up on the jack and the wheel off. I put another jack under the lower control arm and jacked it up till the car body started to lift a tiny bit. I verified that the center of the spindle was now at the same distance from the top of the fender as it was when it was on the ground. This is more or less what the service manual says to do.
Click to expand...

I thought about doing that as well. Some bolts are easier to get to with the car up.
 
Now that I've got the passenger side control arm installed, it's time to move onto the driver's side and hopefully, that task will occur this weekend. Question: The one mounting nut is buried in a tight place under the brake reservoir. What real-world experience and/or advice can one provide me with in regards to accessing this nut before I tear into this. It never hurts to ask as that is the beauty of this forum. Thanks. Rob
 
I found the bolt under the master cylinder very hard to access. There is a bracket that is held by two of the strut mount bolt that gives you more access when undone. A 15mm ratcheting gearwrench is what I used. After I broke it loose I kept the wrench still and turned the tabbed end back and forth by hand as the wrench ratcheted. Starting the nut after replacement is not fun either.
 
This is not "real world," but the service manual recommends disconnecting the master cylinder from the booster and moving it to the side a little to get better access. This is not as involved as it may sound. No brake lines are disconnected, no fluid drained.

2006 Lincoln LS Workshop Manual
 
Finally got around to replacing the upper control arm on the passenger side. Much, much easier than the driver's side. Of course there are brackets in the way of both of the bushing bolts inside of the wheel well. Not a big deal but the engineers made sure it wasn't too easy:). One thing of note that I wanted to mention. I tried jacking the control arm up enough to lift it off of the jack stands for final torquing. To get it off the stands I had the control arm way up in the wheel well and I am sure it wasn't where it would be at ride height. This was confirmed when I put the tire on and lowered it. It probably has something to due with the weight distribution. Anyway if you are going to final torque using the jack method carefully measure the spindle center to the fender to make sure you are at the correct height as joegr said. This requires some planning though. Measures have to be taken before the car is jacked up.
 
Last edited:
Jerryg2112, I ran into the same thing when I replaced the front strut a month ago. Didn't feel comfortable with what I was seeing so I tightened all the nuts to spec with the car on the ground. The piece of mind was worth it. So far, so good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Members online

Total: 52 (members: 1, guests: 51)
Back
Top