Brother, I was successful! Thanks to your post – gave me confidence to tear into it. Took me four days to get it all done. I was able to separate the torsion bars – one was loose and separated easy. One was rusted solid – I knocked it around with a sledge hammer and was ready to give up – then I figured out how to get them to separate. I held the torsion bar vertically with the control arm end in the air, the other end pointed straight down into my garage floor, then dropped it from about six inches. With the weight of the control arm – it released about the third drop. Much easier than with a sledge hammer.
By far, the hardest part was getting the LCA bushings out. Wow. That took hours. I had a 20T press from Harbor Freight, and they still wouldn’t budge (I took the press back – I don’t think I was getting 20T of force). I saw videos of people burning the bushing out - not an option in my neighborhood. I used a drill to loosen the rubber bushings, then pressed out the inner sleeve with a balljoint press C-clamp. After getting the rubber out, I cut, drilled, and pounded the snot out of the sleeves until they released. Happy to say – reinstallation of the new bushings was a breeze – they went in really smooth. Had them in the freezer overnight, and used some motor oil.
The second hardest part was getting the rivets out for my LCA balljoints. I’ve got the stamped control arms with bolt-on balljoints. The rivets were rusted tight. I ended up having to drill the rivets all the way through to get them out.
After that, everything came apart and went back together with no major trouble. Got a lifetime alignment now from Firestone, all Moog parts from Rock Auto, and all is well.
I think I’ll write a forum post like yours, but probably on the GMT400 website, since I’ve got a Sierra.
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