upper control arm question

soundwaves454

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I'm planning on replacing tie rods, stabilizer bar links, adjust toe links and my upper control arms. Is it possible to replace just the ball joints or would it be better to get the whole assembly. Also while I'm getting under there is there anything else I should look into? I'm doing shocks/struts as well along with eibachs. Thanks for any input.
 
I'm planning on replacing tie rods, stabilizer bar links, adjust toe links and my upper control arms. Is it possible to replace just the ball joints or would it be better to get the whole assembly. Also while I'm getting under there is there anything else I should look into? I'm doing shocks/struts as well along with eibachs. Thanks for any input.

Depending on symptoms you're chasing, give your sway bar and its bushings a look. I haven't heard of anyone coming across just the upper ball joints, they're sold as an assembly. I read on here after doing some chassis/suspension work that you should replace all hardware as well. Good luck.
 
I have a lot of this going on. I'll take a look at the sway bar and bushings.

2013-02-16_18-41-58_952.jpg
 
The upper control arm comes with the ball joint... be careful removing & reinstalling the master cylinder
 
If you are replacing the front upper control arms you might want to replace your degass bottle if you haven't already. It will make replacing the driver's side way more easy. You will need to remove the shock to be able to get the bolt out from both side of the front.

2012-07-25_20.53.39.jpg
 
Here I thought you didn't have to remove the master cylinder to do the driver's side uca. Would have made getting to that bolt much, much easier.
 
unbolting the strut tower brace and removing the two bolts holding the degas tank on yields enough room to get a gloved hand and wrench in the for the rear bolt.

I've completely removed the tank to do it, I've loosened the master cylinder to do it (per manual) and i've loosed the degas tank to do it, and honestly, while its a tight fit, just loosening and moving the tank takes the least amount of time.

just be sure to pickup the new shock nuts before you start the job. I've made that mistake once, only to find out the upper mount nuts had to be special ordered.
 
Is all this for the V8? On my V6 (with manual if that matters) I replaced the front upper control arm on the driver's side without touching the master cylinder or the degas bottle.

unbolting the strut tower brace and removing the two bolts holding the degas tank on yields enough room to get a gloved hand and wrench in the for the rear bolt.

I've completely removed the tank to do it, I've loosened the master cylinder to do it (per manual) and i've loosed the degas tank to do it, and honestly, while its a tight fit, just loosening and moving the tank takes the least amount of time.

just be sure to pickup the new shock nuts before you start the job. I've made that mistake once, only to find out the upper mount nuts had to be special ordered.
 
Mine is a V8 and the manual states to loosen the master cylinder and move it to the side. But its still tight. If I felt like draining and bleeding the cooling system, I would have removed the degas bottle. I don't know what the V6 looks like.
 
Got my order in from rockauto yesterday. Going to wait a couple weeks to get this done. I'm waiting on my uca's from tasca to get here this week, than should have enough funds to get tires along with the alignment. Any suggestions where to start from? Should I start at uca's (all 4) and work myself down to tierods, stabilizer bar links, and toe links? Or vise versa? Any special tools I may need?

2013-03-09_13-55-50_795.jpg
 
Got my order in from rockauto yesterday. Going to wait a couple weeks to get this done. I'm waiting on my uca's from tasca to get here this week, than should have enough funds to get tires along with the alignment. Any suggestions where to start from? Should I start at uca's (all 4) and work myself down to tierods, stabilizer bar links, and toe links? Or vise versa? Any special tools I may need?

Good Luck with your front end rebuild. My suspension was pretty well shot after 100k. Have you thought about doing the LCA's and new springs. The reason I'm asking is because new parts are becoming rare for theses cars. I've changed out 8 control arms and everything else. If you plan to keep the car for a while it might be worth the money. I've just replaced all the coolant hose's on my 3.0L (12 hoses in all) because I don't think if one fails I'll be able to find a part within a resonable time. Owning these cars will just become more expensive and inconvienent as time goes by.
AS far as ball joints your pretty much stuck buying the overpriced Moog, the really overpriced OEM with the knuckle or take a shot with the DEEZA(Turkish) or Chinese parts on E bay. These cars are wallet drainers over time
 
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