Front control arms replacement

[hiwasss]

How do I torque the highlighted nuts when there's barely enough room for a wrench? Also, should I wait to torque when all the arms are replaced or do as I go (torque the top arms then move on to the bottom arms)?20230729_113357~2.jpg

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[Nillious]

Put a jack under the lower ball joint. Lift the jack until the car just comes off the jack stand. Tighten all bushings under weight including the sway links. These bolts are torque to yield so it will be a certain amount of rotation after the base torque. You should not reuse the bolts. Most arms come with new hardware. If you bought some without you will need to get new ones.

[Smac770]

Fasteners involving suspension bushings are torqued "at ride height". You need to jack the wheel bearing housing up until you return the wheel bearing housing to the original wheel well arch to wheel center (or axle bolt center with the wheel off) distance. Do not disrespect that being under or even near the car in this configuration is a high danger situation. That corner of the vehicle is now fully supported on whatever it is you used to jack up the wheel bearing housing.

As for those specific bolts, I had to use a crow foot on my torque wrench. You can use whatever creative extension you want, double box end wrench with a socket on the torque wrench to fit the box end, etc. Just be sure to recompute the torque spec correctly; longer arm = lower setting, etc. Torque spec is 50Nm + 90°. After you get the 50Nm done, then you can use a normal wrench for the +90°

[A4Qwattro]

You can try putting the torque wrench on the head of the bolt too. Then counter hold the nut with open ended wrench.

[Fresh.S4]

something like this https://www.amazon.com/ABN-Metric-Do...%2C245&sr=8-18 and this https://www.amazon.com/URREA-1216ML-...s%2C193&sr=8-7

and this https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-20...A-03/316924567

and like mentioned, use a jack under the knuckle and jack it up all the way until right before it lifts off a jack stand.
the tq wrench and a standard short 16mm socket should have enough space to fit on the nut side.

[hiwasss]

I'm trying to remove the heat shield to get access to the front rear lower arm. So far, I found 2 of the 3 bolts. Can anyone tell me where the last one is?IMG_20230729_215728~2.jpg

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[Fresh.S4]

Sent you a pm

[hiwasss]

I finally got the arms out. What's the easiest way to install the ball joint to the front rear lower arm? It needs to be torque at 110Nm. I'm thinking of buying a vise but I'm not sure the mouth opening is big enough.

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[fastboatster]

I finally got the arms out. What's the easiest way to install the ball joint to the front rear lower arm? It needs to be torque at 110Nm. I'm thinking of buying a vise but I'm not sure the mouth opening is big enough.

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I torqued it when I bolted that control arm to the car. as for the upper control arms, I replaced those when I had the front struts out, I marked the orientation of the old arms in relation to the shock mount or whatever the large bracket these arms are bolted to is called. I then transferred these marks to the new arms and tightened these after I aligned the markings. What I'd try to do now if I would struggle with access to the upper control arms' nuts is I'd jack the knuckle to the ride height, put the marks and then unbolt the shock "hat" from the strut towers, let the shock sort of lean out of the wheel well and tighten the nuts while the arms are aligned. That's what I'd do if I was struggling to tighten those upper control arm nuts

[SwankPeRFection]

Bro you may want to visit FCP’s site and watch one of their videos for the control arms if you’ve not done some before or it’s looking difficult. It’ll answer a lot of your questions and give you a good visual aid.

[hiwasss]

I've watched countless videos, and God knows how many times I went over the FCP Euro's video. I'm still not able to get the rear control arm into the sub frame. The passenger side was fine, but I'm not having any luck with the left side. Tried putting in a long screw driver to get the holes aligned. With the bolt partially inserted, moving the arm left, right, in, out, up, down won't get the bolt go through to the other side. It works fine with one of the smaller bolts from the other control arm. I've tried to insert the arm into the sub frame from below, top, and horizontal, each time taking over an hour.

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[fastboatster]

turn the knuckle so that the bolt holes in the arm and the subframe are on the same vertical axis, then lightly tap the arm in place using rubber mallet. You can help the bolt with rubber mallet, too. that's what I did. also, clean up the corrosion/pitting with scothcbrite or something. another way is to slightly file the metal part of the control arm bush - see some naptowntuner vids.

[hiwasss]

turn the knuckle so that the bolt holes in the arm and the subframe are on the same vertical axis, then lightly tap the arm in place using rubber mallet. You can help the bolt with rubber mallet, too. that's what I did. also, clean up the corrosion/pitting with scothcbrite or something. another way is to slightly file the metal part of the control arm bush - see some naptowntuner vids.

Thanks, I'll check out naptowntuner's videos. I use a metal wired brush to clean the surfaces before installing the arms. It requires a great deal of force to tap in the arm using a rubber mallet, and they somehow always ended up offset.

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[fastboatster]

Thanks, I'll check out naptowntuner's videos. I use a metal wired brush to clean the surfaces before installing the arms. It requires a great deal of force to tap in the arm using a rubber mallet, and they somehow always ended up offset.

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you said you can get some smaller diameter bolts in - perhaps try hitting those on their side to move the arm and fine tune with prybar

[hiwasss]

Thank you all for the help. I got all the control arms in and torqued. Just need to somehow put the heat shields back in and find all the screws/bolts for the undercarriage for the engine and gearbox.

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