Joined
·
455 Posts
I had my car in for inspection 2 weeks ago and the mechanic told me that the passenger side "upper ball joint" needed to be replaced. He moved the wheel back-n-forth from the top of the wheel to the bottom (car was on the lift) and you could see slight movement in the joint...meaning it was time to replace it.
Anyhow, I found a brand new upper control arm on ebay for $60 shipped, so I bought and installed it myself. Not very difficult at all. I was finished in about 1 hour. The hardest part was getting to 1 of the 2 bolts that were under the hood. I had to unbolt both of the underhood fuseboxes. The small fusebox had TWO 10mm bolts, and the large fusebox had THREE 10mm bolts. I needed a 10mm deep well socket to remove 2 bolts from the large fusebox.
The 2 large underhood bolts are 17mm in size, and to be torqued to 47 ft.lbs.. The 1 castle nut that holds the ball joint inplace is also 17mm and to be torqued to 35 ft.lbs. Don't forget to first remove the cotter pin on the castle nut.
The upper ball joint can be purchased (without the control arm) from Autozone for about $25, but I decided to just go ahead and replace the whole thing since I found a decent deal on ebay.
Attached pics show what I'm describing.
Anyhow, I found a brand new upper control arm on ebay for $60 shipped, so I bought and installed it myself. Not very difficult at all. I was finished in about 1 hour. The hardest part was getting to 1 of the 2 bolts that were under the hood. I had to unbolt both of the underhood fuseboxes. The small fusebox had TWO 10mm bolts, and the large fusebox had THREE 10mm bolts. I needed a 10mm deep well socket to remove 2 bolts from the large fusebox.
The 2 large underhood bolts are 17mm in size, and to be torqued to 47 ft.lbs.. The 1 castle nut that holds the ball joint inplace is also 17mm and to be torqued to 35 ft.lbs. Don't forget to first remove the cotter pin on the castle nut.
The upper ball joint can be purchased (without the control arm) from Autozone for about $25, but I decided to just go ahead and replace the whole thing since I found a decent deal on ebay.
Attached pics show what I'm describing.
Attachments
-
79.9 KB Views: 417