Removing the Front Lower Control Arms

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Looked around, and in my haynes manual with no luck. Has anyone done this? If so, how? The bolts are way too tight, and the one closest to the wheel above the balljoint, i unscrew and unscrew and unscrew it, and the balljoint does not come off. Please send me a walk-through.
 
Doing mine tomorrow

Hey Bill. I am actually getting ready to replace all four front upper and lower control arms tomorrow. They shouldn't be that difficult to remove. I have had both lowers off before to replace the strut rod to arm bushings.

Before removing the lower control arm you want to mark the cam washer so you can install the new arm as close to where it need to be without throwing off you alignment too far.

I have found a trick on removing the strut rod nut. I place a wrench on the flat part closest to the nut at the control arm and support it with a floor jack. You need to really put some torque on it to break it loose. The Pivot bolt and the shock bolt are pretty straight forward. The ball joint may be a pain if the stud breaks loose and turns while trying to remove the nut. If thats the case you may end up having to cut the nut off with saw or a grinder. Just slice one side, turn the nut and slice the other and break it apart with a chisel.

Hope this helps.
Bill
 
Thats what the problem was! I torques the nut hard, and it "snapped" i thought i loosened it but i didnt, i must have just snapped it off. The other bolts are very tight on there too, what do you recommend to loosen them up? Its hard getting a good wrench in there with a long handle.
 
Tie rod

I removed the outer tie rod to rotate the spindle toward the front and used a 1/2 breaker bar to loosen them up. You could put a little PB Kroil penetrating fluid on the fasteners. That has worked wonders for me before. You may have just broke the ball joint stud loose. Cutting the nut off might be the solution.
 
A small propane torch also helps quite a bit in getting stubborn rusted bolts out. Also, your bottom shock bolt is probably rusted to the bushing sleeve in the lower control arm (almost every northern car I've worked on has been). So be prepared to deal with that and get some new bolts. The other bolts should all be relatively easy to get out.
 
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