Replacing control arms, tierods and CA bushings, advice/tips

[E30godz]

My CA bushings are shot and i figure i might as well do the control arms and tirerods too (for maintence and convience's sake). Any tips or pointers to how too's? I know i have to get the bushings pressed in. I also know its a whore getting the balljoint bolts (tie rod and control arm) out of the strut/hub. So once again, any advice or pointers are welcome.

Thanks guys

[DanGillan]

make sure you count the threads on the tie rods, and set the new one's to the old settings, your car will still probably need an alignment, so keep that in mind. as far as getting the ball joint bolts out of the strut housing, just wail on the housing surrounding the bolt with a hammer, it will drop. or since your replacing everything anyway, use a pickle fork.

[hamann318is]

Get new lock washers for the tie rods. Those will mangle badly when removed.

Everything is very straight foward; you won't have that bad of a time.

[PeaveyBassist]

Tie Rods = easy. Just time consuming getting the lock plates off. Use a small flathead screwdriver and hit them from the bottom or the top to get them started bent backwards. Took me about an hour and a half each side my first time changing them.

Control Arms = Driver side isnt too bad. (About an hour and a half for me) Go at the inner ball joint nut from the backside of it (towards the driver seat) and use a wrench. Shouldnt be too bad. Passenger side inner ball joint is a biatch. (About 4hrs or so:() Get a crow's foot, a U-joint, and a lot of extensions for a breaker bar. Make the bar sit ABOVE the engine. Then youll probably want a pipe on the end of the breaker bar to get the nuts to break loose. After that, if the stud turns with the nut when you turn it, pull the control arm down as far as possible and get someone to rip up the boot on the ball joint and hold the stud with vise grips while you turn the nut on top. Thats what we needed to do to mine that was rusted to hell. Good luck!

Will

[Zoso]

I did both jobs last year. Check my signature for my writeups with pictures.

[kowalski]

or instead of thrashing the boot you could put a jack under the ball joint and jack it up so there is a good amount of presure and that should hold it tight, its a pretty easy thing to do just takes time. good luck and enjoy.

[PeaveyBassist]

Jacking it up didnt work on mine. We tried it... I thought for sure it would work. It works on the outer ball joints on the strut, but it didnt work for the inner ball joint for me.

Will

[Beej '86 325es]

I did both jobs last year. Check my signature for my writeups with pictures.

great writeups you got there, Zoso!

[Zoso]

Glad I can help. I've always loved seeing writeups before I attempt a project - so I decided to take pictures and do my own writeups. Sometimes real pictures and real experiences are better than a Bentley manual. For example, a Bentley manual doesn't say what a bitch it is to get the center ball joint of the control arm on the passenger side off. They don't say that special tools work or you can do this if you don't have the special tool, etc.