[hockeyman]

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.

 

[hockeyman]

Pic 2

 

[hockeyman]

Pic 3

 

[hockeyman]

And finally...pic 4

 

[yakuza]

Thanks for the photos.

Did you have to remove the shock in order to do the swap?

Add this to the sticky list.

 

[schlegelmilch99]

Thanks for the write-up; I think when people hear "ball joint", they assume they can't do it themselves.

Just thought I'd share my experience with this... I just did the ball joint instead of the whole arm, but that was because I had other costly things going on. And, I never removed the shock in the process.

When I replaced by half axle on the driver's side, I was able to replace just the (upper) ball joint. I know it said everywhere to just replace the whole control arm, but they sold the ball joint at AutoZone, part number 104330. When I had the knuckle apart to do the half shaft, I went ahead and replaced upper and lower ball joints, and the outer tie rod end, especially since the lower ball joint was so seized, I had to destroy it to finally break it free. On a side note, the wheel bearing had to be removed to replace the lower ball joint (trip to the machine shop, where I also had them go ahead and press in/out the ball joints).

The best place I found for the half shaft was Advanced Auto. I think it was $60 with no core swap.

Also, if you think you're going to remove the axle without removing the knuckle at the lower ball joint, you're delusional. It won't happen without damaging something in the process.

Might as well check out your front brakes while you have everything apart as well.....

 

[dpkelly]

You don't neet to remove the shock to remove the upper control arm.

 

[hockeyman]

Sorry, I haven't checked on here since posting that.

As DP had mentioned, I did not have to remove the shock when doing this. It was surprisingly easy.

I planned most of the day (ahead of time) to do this, and it took me just 1 hour.

A Deep Box End 17mm wrench like this works great for the control arm bolt that's closest to the firewall. It takes a while because of the limited space you have to turn the wrench, but it's about the best wrench to use.

 

[BracedEunos]

Might as well install some adjustable camber Arm brackets if you are lowered. Perfect time.

 

[IMKuriousgeorge]

be carefull with them ebay balljoints. the rubber boot that covers the balljoint dont last long, they crack, rip, tare leaving the balljoint open to rain, water, dust and dirt which is very bad. from personal experience, i recomend buying from auto parts store with lifetie warranty.

 

[hockeyman]

be carefull with them ebay balljoints. the rubber boot that covers the balljoint dont last long, they crack, rip, tare leaving the balljoint open to rain, water, dust and dirt which is very bad. from personal experience, i recomend buying from auto parts store with lifetie warranty.

Actually, the whole control arm was sealed in a bag with the Honda P/N sticker on it. I couldn't believe that he accepted my offer for $60...but he did. I guess it was sitting on ebay for a while and he wanted to unload it.

If it is a cheap knock-off, it was a darn good job of it. It looks like it came straight from honda's factory. I'm actually thinking of offering $60 for the driver's side too.

 

[yakuza]

Control arms were easier than I thought.

The passenger side was the hardest, getting to the bolt near the firewall.

The driver side took about 15 minutes

 

[yakuza]

If you aren't replacing the entire arm (easiest), you can just press the old out and press-in the new ones as demonstrated in this video. (SPC makes camber ball joints so that you can add or subtract 1.5^ camber.

http://www.spc-tv.com/install/pass-car/38-adjustable-ball-joints.html