upper control arm

shawn

Registered User
hey guys ive got the most annoying scrunching in my front tires from my ball joints and heard this is a fairly easy fix hopefully. is there anywhere to get a detailed step buy step walk through to replace these
 
Surprisingly this is one of the simpler jobs on the SC.

1. Loosen lug nuts, jack up car, insert jack stand, remove wheel.

2. Loosen pinch bolt nut and back almost all the way off.
Hammer on the bolt till it pops out, finish removing the nut and remove the pinch bolt. Hammer the sides of the arm up until the stud pops out.

3. Knock the tabs off the frame bolts by knocking them back and forth with a screwdriver. To Loosen the bolts, you can reach behind the spring with an extension, socket, and ratchet. Use a backup wrench on the nut and a breaker bar on the ratchet (1/2" drive recommended). The only one which is tricky to get to is the rear nut on the passenger side. Go underneath and you can see it clear as day.
All you need is a little grip on the nut as its a backup wrench. It doesn't even need to fit tight.

4. Remove both bolts, remove the arm.

5. Install new arm and hammer balljoint stud into the spindle.
Do not torque the frame bolts just yet. Torque the pinch nut (Not the bolt!) to 60 lbs.

6. Raise the whole assembly by using a jack under the lower arm until the car just starts to come off the jack stand. Torque the frame bolts or nuts to 80 lbs.

7. lower the jack, install the wheel, lower the car, torque the lug nuts.

On the driver side, if you can't reach the front nut, you might have to move the washer reservoir out of the way. For the rear, just reach in below the HCU and feel around with a wrench.

That's it. About 1/2 hr per side if all goes well. I replaced the sway bar end links at the same time since the covers were split open, so it took me about 2 hrs total. :)
 
quality?

Any brand preference with the control arms? Where did you get yours? How much? This is my next purchase. Thanks guys!
 
I bought mine at O'Reilly's. They were Moog (TRW) and the price was approx. $56 each. Complete with bushings and ball joint.

I also replaced both my lowers with new ones from John Nolan Ford. Price was approx. $98 each and they came complete with bushings (frame to lower, shock to lower, and balljoint). Inside the ford box, they were stamped TRW.
 
make sure

the annoying scrunching sound is ball joints ....I thought mine was ball joints ...and turned out to be swaybar end links @ the caliper connection....and it would not make the noise ..when I jacked the car up .but on the ground... just had to shake the car alittle ...and it made the most annoying scrunching sound ..I sprayed grease into everything that had a boot on it...to find it ...dave
 
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Thanks guys

sounds like an easy job. I appreciate the parts and price info very much!!! les schwab found my ball joint loose and could even wiggled it for me. And I can hear it going over speedbumps etc. I'm hoping my steering accuracy gets better because I feel like I'm a little sloppy because of it. I'm only replacing the bad (pass) side cause I'm poor and hope that doesn't hurt anything till I replace the other side. Thanks again guys. L8a.
 
yikes

well. I forgot to knock off the tabs and stripped the front bolt. the bolts are 15mm I'm pretty sure. my question is. I don't have replacement tabs for the bolts, is this going to be a problem?

also, where do you put the "backup" wrench? I just see the bolt head with the broken off locktabs which I believe only needs a 15mm socket or box end wrench to get off. thx. :confused:
 
You put the wrench on the nut not the bolt. The bolt has those tabs on there so you dont need a backup wrench. The tab locks the bolt so you can remove the nut without a backup wrench.
Just turn the nut.
Dont knock off the tabs.
 
Actually, yes. Do knock off the tabs. The reason you rounded the bolt is you didn't get enough of it. Pry the tabs off and the socket should seat fine. The tabs are there to speed up the assembly line installation. You will also need the whole bolt head to torque it down properly.

Ummm... don't forget that before you tighten it up, you're supposed to raise the suspension to normal ride height first. I'm getting most of this straight from the Haynes manual and it worked just fine for me.
 
We changed mine (upper control arms) to get rid of that scrunching noise. It wasn't as bad as it looked like, and we also knocked the tabs off to get a wrench on the bolt.

Get a can of penetrating oil, floor jack and someone to help hold wrenches and it won't take very long.

David
 
You guy's must have different tabs than I have or something.
I only needed 1 wrench to fit the nuts and removed them myself without any backup wrench or anyone elses involvement.
It was so easy I couldnt beleive it, about the only thing I've found easy to do on this car infact.
Only took about 20 minutes to get all 4 bolts out.
I must be missing something.:confused:
 
Sounds like you have a better selection of tools. Only the nuts on the front side of mine are very accessible. The 2 on the backside, closest to the firewall, were too hard to reach with anything other than a backup wrench which I think I used a monkey wrench for. Couldn't get to them and get any leverage with plain old tools. Otherwise, it sounds possible.
 
I tried to replace the A Arms on my 90, and saw those tabs, but they look welded onto the bolt. So, I tried loosening the nut on the inside of the engine companrtment on the driver's side. The thing was so tight, that I was practically lifting the car off the jackstands.

After 3 days of trying, (I took a break here and there ;) ), I gave up and took it to a mechanic.

I wish I would have seen this sooner.:mad:

Oh well.
 
Sometimes a small piece of pipe to slip over the wrench for a little more leverage does the trick. I really am surprised that so many have had a problem with this, it was just about the easiest thing I've done to this car.:confused:
 
I know this is an old thread, but it’s probably one of the most helpful ones for actually removing the front upper control arms.

I am struggling to remove the upper control arms on my 1993 SC 5-speed. It does not have an accumulator booster brake booster (which I hope means I have more wiggle room on driver’s side). However, on the passenger side, there is a black cylinder part which is blocking my access to the rear passenger upper control arm nut. Is the removal of this cylinder necessary for clearance? Otherwise I cannot figure out how to put a ratcheting 18 mm wrench on it from above or below.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
That back cylinder is the dryer for the a/c. I've just used an open ended wrench on mine, then upgraded to new hardware so I can tighten it from the bottom now.
 
Thanks for the reply.

My brother suggested I try turning the bolt (instead of the nut) with a 15 mm wrench and used the open end of the 18mm wrench to hold the nut in place. We got the passenger side out and we’ll do the drivers side tomorrow.

I also sprayed PB blaster on the pinched part that I’ll hammer out tomorrow.
 
Thanks for the reply.

My brother suggested I try turning the bolt (instead of the nut) with a 15 mm wrench and used the open end of the 18mm wrench to hold the nut in place. We got the passenger side out and we’ll do the drivers side tomorrow.

I also sprayed PB blaster on the pinched part that I’ll hammer out tomorrow.

Exactly how I got them out last time. In a pinch you can grind them out too.
 
I wasted so much time trying to get my 18mm ratcheting wrench on the passenger rear nut I was going insane. I opened 2 service manuals and neither was telling me how to access the nut (no mention of removing throttle body or air conditioning parts).
I was ready for a fight; I bought 2 ratcheting 18mm ratchets (figuring Id break one) and a non-ratcheting 18 mm wrench. Im going to return 2 of them because it turns out I just need a 15mm socket/wrench I can torque on and a 15mm ratcheting wrench after I break them loose to easily twist the bolt off while the open ended 18mm wrench holds the nut.

For future SC guys out there, you don't have to remove the black cylinder thingy or even the throttle body and probably not even the cables. I did remove a spark plug boot on the driver’s side (closest to master cylinder) so I could swing a ratchet but I’ll probably just hold it still now while I torque on the 15mm bolt.

At least this lesson will help me be prepared for when my other 2 Supercoupe require this.
 
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