72 250 - replacing lower control arm
 

Took my car to 2 separate shops in town for an alignment (car is pulling to the right) and both told me I have a bent right lower control arm and I need left lower control arm bushings. Any one have a right lower control arm and how much work is it to R&R? Can anyone post the steps?

Thanks, Ryan

By 'control arm' are they talkin lower A-Frame that holds ball joint suspension, shocks and springs...... or is it just the tie rods they're talkin about?

TR's are less than $50 per pair easily installed, lower A-frame arm is probly about $100 plus massive labor. Dunno about "bushings" cause that can mean practically anything from subframe rubbers to ball-joints (reasonably cheap) yet labor intensive to set em in place.

For less than $350 or $400 total I'd git em done. Front suspensions eventually shake and beat themselves to death, gettin worse and worse if just a few components go south.

The lower right control arm is bent - not the tie rods etc. I found a good used one with bushings intact and good ball joint and I am thinking of doing the job myself. Anyone ever done this - any advice?

ryan

I did it on my 108. Dunno how similar it would be but here's what I did:

Jack the front end off the ground (Make sure to chock the rear wheels very well!). Rest it on stands. Then raise the corner you want to work on even further. You'll need at least 6" of the tire off the ground completely to do this comfortably. More is better.

Once you have the wheel off, take the shock out. Take the brake line off and plug it. Put a jack underneath the control arm and raise the jack until it begins compressing the spring. Remove the sway bar from the control arm. Proceed to remove the nut and bolt that holds the hub assembly to the control arm.

Slowly lower the jack and pull the spring out. Hopefully your jack was nearly fully extended when you raised the control arm before, so it has plenty of room to go down. If you're careful, this is not as dangerous as it sounds. Remove the other bolts for the control arm and pull it out. Put the new one in place and reattatch it to those bolts (4 of them, IIRC). Reinsert the spring in its proper orientation and put the jack underneath the control arm. This is a bit tricky, but jack the control arm up until the bolt for the hub assembly can be reinstalled. If the spring is not seated correctly or looks like it might fly out, slowly let the arm down and try again. Took me about 3 or 4 tries before I was comfortable jacking it all the way up. Reattatch the sway bar. Reinstall the shock, reattatch and bleed the brake, put the wheel on, lower the car and tighten the wheel back up.

Took me about 2-3 hours. I was working in mud, too.