Upper ball joints/ control arms

[JERSEYJOE]

Has anyone replaced their uppeer control arms? my right side upper is loose enought that I can hear it rattle when I go over bumps. It's also loosewhen you jack the car up. I understand that the ball joint is part of the control arm, and I want to replace both sides at the same time.

Anyone done this? How hard is it to do? Since the camber adjustment is in the lower arm bolt, I should not neet to have it re aligned.

Moog has them for around $80.00 per side

 

[scott9050]

When you do this check the sway bar end links as well, if they are bad just replacing the control arms will not do, it will still rattle. There are several write ups about it out there, the job is time consuming but not too bad.

 

[JMiles_T]

Has anyone replaced their uppeer control arms?
(edited)
Anyone done this? How hard is it to do? Since the camber adjustment is in the lower arm bolt, I should not neet to have it re aligned.

I'd say that it's slightly less frustrating than changing O2 sensors. It's a bolt-on, for sure; the annoying thing is having to move a bunch of other components out of the way to do it.

The driver's side is likely to be a pain depending on what tools you have available. The location of the bolt next to the brake master cylinder makes it challenging to get a socket on there, let alone turn it.

I had to unbolt the master cylinder from the brake booster, and remove the brake booster from the car to have room to turn that control arm bolt. I also had to remove my wiper cowl, and blade assembly in order to have room to remove the brake booster.

(Some have been able to avoid messing with the brake system by using an extension to reach that control arm bolt through the wheel well, but I wasn't able to do it that way.)

You'll also need to unbolt your coolant reservoir to reach the other bolt.

Once you've got that side done, you should be able to get the passenger side done comparatively easily.

Don't count on getting it done in one day.