Damn Upper Control Arm Needs replacing

mespock

mespock

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Took my 93 in to get an alinement this moring and about 15 min later (Yes Boscobel is a small town. Drop car off they give me a ride back then drop car off at home when done. Cool) I get a phone call and it's not an alinement problem.

My upper ball joints are shot on the driver's side.

$300 for them to fix. $92 for me to do the job. Hmmmmm which one should I take.

www.rockauto.com for part thanks Torque...

At least it's not as bad as Mike's job. Sorry to hear that good friend.
 
what do the broken ones look like? and do you know where you could get performance ones?
 
I got the Rock Auto Moog Ones. Took me a whole 15 minutes to change.

Then again, I have no motor in the lincoln, so that made it easier. But you will have to drop the struts. The pss. side fron bolt and the driver side rear bolt don't have enough room to come out without dropping the struts.

Also, those little ratchet wrenches come in very handy in those tight spots.
 
Its not that hard. The rear bolt is a pain to get at, by the brake unit.

You can spot a bad one by grabbing the top of your tire with both hands and pull outward, you will feel the looseness. You can see it too, the ball joint in the UCA is right above the tire, thats what goes. You change the whole arm instead of pressing in a new ball joint.
 
Frogman said:
I got the Rock Auto Moog Ones. Took me a whole 15 minutes to change.

Then again, I have no motor in the lincoln, so that made it easier. But you will have to drop the struts. The pss. side fron bolt and the driver side rear bolt don't have enough room to come out without dropping the struts.

Also, those little ratchet wrenches come in very handy in those tight spots.
Click to expand...
I don't remember unbolting my struts.
 
Rich,

I did mine a few weeks ago. The Pass side is not too bad - but the Driver side I had to loosen the master cyl and genetly pull out of the way to get to the nut. It really is not a bad job, just be safe. I had only one stopping point when seperating the UCA from the spindle the actual joint broke apart and I had heck of a time getting the rest of the joint out of the spindle. Do a search here there are some good pics. My Lincoln CD manual does not have UCA removal - wierd.

I used the TRW upgraded UCA $88 ea

I did have to loosen the air bag on top and bottom to get the rear bolt out. Was too long and hit the back of the bag. Maybe this is a Gen II thing. I don't remember having to drop the bags on my 95.
 
You HAFTA unbolt the upper bolts for the struts or the bolt for the control arm will not have enuf room to come out completely. At least that is what I had to do every time I replaced mine.
 
I definately had to unbolt the top of the strut to get the bolt out. You can just take the 3 nuts off the top and let the air out, then compress it.
I think the the thunderbird guys leave their struts in place..not sure though. Gear wrenches definately help in this case. On the driver's side, I can get at the rear nut by unplugging stuff in the master cylinder area and sneaking a breaker bar with an 18mm socket in there. You'll have to break the "flag" off and undo it from underneath.
Good luck.
 
Frat-man-du said:
Rich,


I used the TRW upgraded UCA $88 ea
Click to expand...

where do i look for them, and whats diffrent about them?
 
Advance has TRW for $73 i think. That is the online price....I had to print it and bring it to the store to get that price.
 
Yup... strut has to be loosend. If you want to drive it down rich, we could do both in an hour, and go out and do something for the rest of the day.



Mike
 
If your car is non-air ride you can use T-Bird ones they are only 50.00 each at O'Ripme's. The only difference is the T-Bird one's don't have the ball stud for the ride height sensor.:D
 
JC1994 said:
If your car is non-air ride you can use T-Bird ones they are only 50.00 each at O'Ripme's. The only difference is the T-Bird one's don't have the ball stud for the ride height sensor.:D
Click to expand...



If you have acess to a welder, and a cutoff wheel, you can still use the t-bird units.



Mike

100_0448.jpg
 
I don't have Air Ride Struts anymore on my 93. Will that change the issue with dropping the strut?

I do have the ratchet wrenches so I should be able to do this with NP.

Thanks Mike but with all the Track meets now I don't have a weekend to drive down until after the first weekend in June. But I sure like the offer and the ride is no longer than going to our cottage in Northern Wisconsin.

I got my Moog control arm from Rock Auto, let's see how fast shipping is. I'm hoping to have this project done next sunday, or late next week if I have the time with track practice going on.

Now that it is making lots of noise due to the wiggling of the tire. Is there any problem with my daughter still driving it to school for a few days?
 
Well I always try not to drive on bad front end parts for safety reasons. If its not so loose that its about to pop out, a few days shouldn't hurt, if its moving around so much that you think it could, I wouldn't let her.
 
You couldn't tell that it was bad Wednesday. But after they played around with it now it is noisy...

I'll take it out today and see what's up with it a little more just to make sure. Just don't have another car for her to drive right now.
 
MrWilson said:
where do i look for them, and whats different about them?
Click to expand...

dunno - My local parts shop (not- auto bone) said there were two TRWs listed one for $45 and the more expensive one. I don't go cheap on brakes and suspension. Warranty was 90 days vrs 12 months.
 
Frogman said:
Just keep in mind, if you let her drive with those bad UCA's, you may not need to have to have a car for her.

Front end stuff comes off at high speeds, you could easily be toast.
Click to expand...

Agreed 100%!!!!!!

This stuff is not to be fooled with. Lets just say this -I would not let my daughter even think of riding in the car (wife is a different story :eek: ).
 
I am so happy that my mark had them already replaced when I got it:D
 
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