It's finally time to replace the front control arm bushings!

[poleclimber63]

Over the years, my 4rs' road behavior has slowly degraded, to the point that, it was time for a rebuild. A year or so ago, I visited the Pick N Pull and acquired stock uca's and lca's, thinking it would be faster and easier to have a set of control arms ready to go, when i decided to do the work. I made a huge mistake! I had removed the old bushings, cleaned them up and painted them...I then purchased an Energy Suspension poly bushing set, so I was ready to proceed-- reading the instructions, I discovered I needed the old bushings! Then life got in the way.
Energy Suspension bushings require you to use the old metal sleeves from the old stock bushings, due to my mistake, I decided to use the lca's from my truck, and the shiny ones I acquired as I still had the old bushings.... I then read posts from other people's experiences doing this job and noticed what a PITA installing the ES bushings others experienced. Doing it myself, they were right!! torching the sleeves was indeed messy and time consuming!! I would have gone Whiteline if I had known (and done a little more research before the ES bushings!). I'll be re-assembling everything this weekend, and I've scheduled an alignment for next Tuesday.


Start of project:

On disassembly, I was suprised that my cam adjusters werent totally rusted!!!

Control arms prepared and hubs painted:

More pics to come.

 

[brillo_76]

Good job the rig will ride better now..

 

[poleclimber63]

Another evening of progress... the upper and lower CA's are in, right hub mounted. Tomorrow left hub and torquing everything to spec. Up to now, messing with the ES bushings and cleaning and wire wheeling off the rust has taken most of the time. I was surprised how much surface rust had formed since I last wire brushed and painted around the hubs and backing plates, that's when I last replaced the lbjs...even the shocks are rusty, but not leaking.
Note to self: next time I service the brakes it will be time to replace the brake lines, also the cv's will need attention soon...maybe the rack, as it looks like it was starting to leak-- I'll keep an eye on that...

 

[HiLife]

It doesn't seem like Vernon uses salt on it's roads during winter seasons as your under carriage looks great. And evident on how easy you said for the adjusting bolts/sleeves to come out easily.

Did you have a backup plan in case the sleeves got stuck? I know this forum turns to saws-all as a remedy. Wonder if C clamps would work to press the stuck sleeves out?

I need to do this too, badly. Problem is the 4r needs to be up on all 4's after starting the repair within that day. It can't be on jack stands overnight so, I really have to plan this out and be prepared for whatever the sleeves throw at me.

Or am I just overthinking this?

 

[poleclimber63]

It doesn't seem like Vernon uses salt on it's roads during winter seasons as your under carriage looks great. And evident on how easy you said for the adjusting bolts/sleeves to come out easily.

Did you have a backup plan in case the sleeves got stuck? I know this forum turns to saws-all as a remedy. Wonder if C clamps would work to press the stuck sleeves out?

I need to do this too, badly. Problem is the 4r needs to be up on all 4's after starting the repair within that day. It can't be on jack stands overnight so, I really have to plan this out and be prepared for whatever the sleeves throw at me.

Or am I just overthinking this?

You aren't over thinking this. Yes, my Wife calls me meticulous, but I'm not as picky as she thinks, I will tell you I was a bit surprised to see as much rust as I did, when I got it up in the air! I spent the first Sat. afternoon, disassembling, taking a few pictures and arranging the parts in order. Sun. all I did was wire wheel everywhere I saw rust involving the front suspension. I spent the next few nights wire brushing and cleaning in preparation for paint. Even though I POR15 the front frame members in 2016 when I did an engine swap, rust was still starting to come through. Last weekend was almost entirely taken up removing/re-assebling the bushings/ prep and paint. In total I spent 2 weeks(week days maybe 1-2 hours in the evenings) and 4-5 hrs each day on weekends. It's a lot of work. I had purchased mevotech adjusters just in case, they will be going back. When I removed the control arms from the Pick N Pull, I used a Sawzall. My truck was up on jack stands the whole time. This was my experience-- it went much better than expected- only took an evening to remove the ubj's from the hubs. If you don't paint, it's possible you could do what I did in a weekend. Possibly, if you have no snags.

 

[poleclimber63]

Couple of other things

It doesn't seem like Vernon uses salt on it's roads during winter seasons as your under carriage looks great. And evident on how easy you said for the adjusting bolts/sleeves to come out easily.

Did you have a backup plan in case the sleeves got stuck? I know this forum turns to saws-all as a remedy. Wonder if C clamps would work to press the stuck sleeves out?

I need to do this too, badly. Problem is the 4r needs to be up on all 4's after starting the repair within that day. It can't be on jack stands overnight so, I really have to plan this out and be prepared for whatever the sleeves throw at me.

Or am I just overthinking this?

When I first decided to do this, I was thinking the same thing as you-- however, my reason was to have the vehicle off the road for as little time as possible. With what I experienced at the Pick N Pull, I assumed my cams were going to be rusted, so I bought a set just in case. I bought everything at Rockauto and had everything I needed including a ball joint kit from Amazon(there is one cylinder that I needed for removal that didn't come in the kit, I made due by cutting off the ball joint and using a socket to remove the base of the ball joint-- hint: after removing the old snap ring from the ubj, and pressing out the base, REALLY clean the area, as I had a time getting the new snap ring in). BTW, avoid Moog... anyways, if I hadn't painted the frame, and I hadn't screwed up on the bushings(buying the wrong polys) and had the replacement control arms ready to go, there is a possibility I could have done this in one day, especially if you aren't replacing your ubj's or tre's, all of which I did. I had originally thought about replacing the rack but that would have added $6-700cdn to the job, and the rack seemed to be working OK, eventhought it's starting to leak a little..
Ya, in Winter, Vernon doesn't use salt on the roads but they do use sodium phosphate solution once in a while.... they use a ton of sand!