yeah, the sleeve inside the bushing had come undone from the inside of the bushing so turning the bolt only turned the sleeve and was actually trying to unbolt the sleeve along with it (this was causing the metal of the chasis to bend)



to replace the entire lca. Initially, it was to replace ball joints, but it I was in doubt whether my lca bushings were ok, and it was more cost-effective, to me, to buy the entire lca than just the balljoints, and I'm glad I did too (I'll explain in a bit)




by the time I got your post, I managed to get that pos off!



honestly, I could not agree with you more!!!




LOL. I did a whole bunch of swearing!!! What I had to do was loosen that bolt to the piont that the chasis metal actually got twisted (ie. pulled out towards the front of the car) about half an inch. The sway bar link was removed, and the nut and 2 bolts to the rear of the lca were also removed (only the ball joint was still attached to the knuckle). Then, with the half inch space behind the bushing, I angle grinded that bolt and drilled on it to just rip right through it (the angle grinder couldn't reach to cut through to the very top of that bolt). TRUST ME: better said than done!!!



I didn't know, thanks. I will do this from now on.



That, I always do, too.



I didn't know it was possible to do it with the car not raised. I wouldn't do it because there wouldn't be enough space, and after you removed the lca from the ball joint, I wouldn't rely much on having my car supported by the just the strut while working underneath it.



I didn't know this actually, thank you!!! I just finished this job this morning, and now I will lower the car and torque my bolts. I was thinking of torquing them while my car was still raised, but I'll do as you suggested.



Sorry, but from experience, those bolts DO rust! The threads, the head, and the body of the bolt (it's about 4 inches long), were all rusted. The entire body was rusted and seized to the inside of the bushing sleeve.

I hate dealing with suspension because of the rust! You're right about that!!!

ok, here's a small description of what happened. I spent about 30 man-hours on this (just me, alone, with a bit of help from my brother). Almost everyone said that replacing the lca was easy, well, from experiece, I tell you that it is NOT. At least it's not easy if you live in a climate where weather conditions are not the greatest; here, every winter there is plenty of road salt!

So, I had to angle grind that b*tch of that bolt. I tried to loosen it, but as it loosened, the sleeve, which was seized to it, was pushing the chasis metal out towards the front. This created a half inch gap behind the bushing. I angle grinded this off, about half way because the angle grinder couldn't reach above, anymore, without cutting part of the chasis, which I didn't want. So, I ended up drilling into the remaining half of that bolt.

Then, my second worst problem. The ball joint was also seized to the the knucle. Oh my Lord!!! Any more problems?!! After hitting on the lca downwards SEVERAL times, using penetrating oils, etc, etc, you name it, I did it!!!, I angle grinded it off. At this point, the lca just fell on the floor. Now I was stuck with the ball joint seized to the knucle. I tried drilling into it to try opening up that hole. Yeah right!!! I think that ball joint must be made from a material out of this planet 'cause I ended up breaking like 10 drill bits. Heating it up did nothing. Leaving it overnight with penetrating oil did nothing. I got a metal particle in my eye, went to the hospital (I have a follow-up visit in 1.5 hours, today). When I got back home (after resting for a bit), out of frustration, I tried to angle grind the part of the knucle where that stuck ball joint was in, and about half way, I quite on it and hit it again, just to try, and finally the damn remaining ball joint just fell out. Now I have to replace my knuckle.

Man, it was quite an experience, these past 4 or 5 days. And I still have the passenger-side lca to do (lol). Well, at least there's a lot of experience I took from this which will hopefully make this job easier, on the passenger-side.

THANK-YOU, for all of you who helped me through this and gave me suggestions. It DEFINTELY helped!!

 

Nex time, if the ball joint is frozen to the knuckle, you can take a brass hammer and bang the hell out of it. smile.gif)smile.gif)smile.gif) (I said bang). You will need to hit the knuckle right where the ball joint is located. Just make sure you hit the knuckle and not the ball joint.

Also, make sure to seat the outer tie rod fully into place. They have a tappered end, and if you don't seat them, you will have a little bit of free play in your steering and there will be a POP when you turn the wheel. When you seat it, support the car, use a pry bar to push the tie rod up into the knuckle. Then tighten the castle nut, and insert a preferrably new coter pin. If you have to remove the tie rod for any reason. mark the threads with white out and count the number of turns required to remove it. When you reinstall, turn the same number of turns and you should be at the white out mark you made. This will help to keep your toe angle where it should be or close to where it was to reduce tire wear until you can get an alignment. You must get an alignment!!!!

Hope it helped, and no, the lca's really aren't that bad.

 

I used a pickle fork to get the balljoint off the steering knuckle, and it took quite a bit of hammering. What was a lot worse - the ball joint bolt threads were pretty bad, and there was not enough room to take the nut off before separating the bolt from the knuckle a little; but then the bolt would just spin along with the nut making it very hard to take it off.. that sucked a lot. Also, the sway bar links were impossible to take off, i had to split the nut to take it off the sway bar.

 

My only advise with a pickle fork is to be careful. If you are going to reuse the ball joint, I would not recommend using one. You run a very good chance of destorying the ball joint. Once I got the nut loose or off, I have always hit the knuckle with a brass hammer. After a few strikes, it will just pop out.

 

Oh, for sure, you can't do it if you want to reuse the ball joint. I was replacing the entire assembly, so I didn't care.

 

Glad to hear you got it out!

It is somewhat ironic, but as I was installing a Ksport Kontrol Pro kit on my friends civic, I ran into this SAME problem, TWICE!!

Both of the lower mounts for the rear struts were seized, I got pissed off and just torched the hell out of them while spraying water on the shock to prevent it from overheating/rupturing.

God, was that ever a PITA!

The torch came in handy yet again!

 

A pickle fork would have done you just fine in this case, since you wouldn't be reusing the ball joint anyways. In the future, it probably would have been easier if you had just replaced the ball joint itself. That way, you can replace them without removing the lower control arm. Just borrow a ball joint press from a store that loans tools, or try and pick one up from a Ford mechanic who's getting out of the business. I used to use my impact wrench to replace them on F series pickups, but since I don't have an air compressor at my house, I had to use a breaker bar to crank the press. It took a little longer, but wasn't hard at all. And you'll have to take a trip to a hardware store so you can get some pieces of pipe to make the right adapters, but you can figure it out. Sure beats the hell out of spending 30 hours on 2 lower control arms lmao.gif

 

yeah, I used the pickle fork 'cause, like you said, I didn't need the old ball joint, but that wasn't working. That ball joint was really seized to the knucle; it had been there for 9 years through lots and lots of road-salt.. But next time, I'm gonna bang on that pickle fork like that's my only option LOL. It definitely beats having to go through all the trouble I went through. On my follow-up visit to the hospital so that they could see how my eye was doing 4 days after having that metal particle removed, I was told that if I had gotten that metal particle stuck 3mm higher, I would've had permanent vision damage. DAMN!!!! That was totally my fault! Talk about stupid, for not wearing goggles. I've done tons of drilling, and after years of it, you get too confident with the drill. From now on, the goggles are my best friend ;-)