Changed Lower Control Arm
 

The ball joint on my nearside lower control arm was shot so I changed it today.

Very straight forward job really. I've got a ball joint separator tool but found that it was too small .... it doesn't have enough reach. So improvisation was required. I jammed the jaws of an adjustable wrench around the little rubber boot and used my trolly jack to lift the other end of it. It took quiet a bit of force but eventually it popped out with a bang.

All in all an easy job. Must keep a look out for a bigger ball joint separator tool though.

I actually did it without a separator....I just used a rubber malat and beat on the knuckle then put a crowbar and of course i put some penetrating oil and waited 10-15min to soak then out it came.

Is there a dyi write-up for this somewhere? I didn't see it in the "how to" section.

joe

2006 4.4

It wouldn't be much of a write up to be honest. Remove the road wheel; un-do the nut on the chassis side and slide out the bolt; remove the nut from the ball joint side and pop the ball joint by whatever means you can; do the opposite with the new arm to fit it; torque to 100Nm on the chassis side and 80Nm on the ball joint side; put the wheel back on and that's it.

The job took me 90 minutes of which 60 were spent trying to pop the old ball joint. If you have a big enough separator I'd say this is a 45 minute job.

Just to add that the distance between the top of the "bolt" bit protruding from the top of the joint and the rubber gaitor bit was too long for the jaws of my separator. Also the fork part of my separator wasn't wide enough to get into the joint. So these things made it useless.

What symptoms did you have, that made you replace these?

Thanks.

just one note....the chasis bolt once you undo it leave it there so you can use a pry bar and push down on it to pop out the ball joint.

If their bad you will feel vibrations loose feeling...and if the bushings are bad i mean really bad you will get horrible shaking when turning and if somewhat worn out then when you hit bumps there will be some shudder like how good old american cars deal with a bump you feel the shudder through out the car....its looks feel not like bmw when it his bumps its one jolt not like a shudder that dissipates like a wave....I hope that makes sense.

I had no noticable symptoms. I changed it because it failed the Irish equivalent of the MOT a few weeks ago on a worn ball joint.

Yo, man! It's "puff, puff then pass". Your just puffing it all to your self !

(lol, I have no idea what your getting at.... but thanks for the try!)

Yea its hard to describe what you should feel....bottom line if you have lots of steering shaking its a good idea to look at the lower control arms