Lower Control Arm Q

[OR VietVet]

Replacing the lower control arms isnt a tough job at all. Its the uppers that can be a total pain. Those eccentric bolts and nuts get frozen up enough to where you cant get them loose then the pain begins. On my Tahoe we just could not get them to loosen up. A torch didnt even help until we used the torch to cut them off.

My friend works on semis for a living and he taught me a quick n dirty trick on the control arm bushings that he does with semis (they are much bigger). If you are replacing the bushings but not the arms then just catch the old bushings on fire (once control arm is removed) and the bushings fall right out instead of wasting time knocking them out with a press. Then clean up melted rubber with a wire wheel and press new bushings in.

As a guy that worked in shops for a long time, we used to burn the bushings out as well. Way quicker. All you had left was the outer sleeve to use a air hammer on and just collapse the thing and it would fall out too. I used to love steering and suspension work. I thought it was gravy flat rate work.

 

[Teamiez]

Have hope that the torsion bars want to come out, mine didn’t!

 

[rockola1971]

Have hope that the torsion bars want to come out, mine didn’t!

The day before you intend to remove lower control arms you always soak the torsion bars down where they engage the control arm. This will clean up some of the corrosion and free things up and make it a whole lot easier. I always soak the eccentric bolts down on the nut end on the upper control arms for the same reason. I will do this every day for atleast 3 days. But even that may not do any good and the eccentric bolts stillo have to be cutoff with a torch. They can be a total pain. I always replace the eccentrics with new eccentric bolts no matter what.