Some DIY help on the thrust/control arms

[eric5150]

So i got the Lemforder parts with the 750 bushings, all good. Decided to jack up the car last night, and see if I could do a quick swap out to cure the nifty brake shimmy that has cropped up, but no go.

I had an 18" breaker bar on the Thrust arms bushing nut, and couldn't make that puppy budge at all. After about 1/2 hour, I just decided that this was NOT going to happen yesterday, and will try again later.

So, from the people who have done this, how did you break those things loose? It doesn't seem like there is enough room to get an impact gun up in there, so what what did you do?

TIA,

Eric

I've got the roadster to drive about, so it's not like I need to do this RIGHT NOW, but I would like to get it done.

[bjl4776]

Your shimmy is under braking? Are you sure its the thrust arms and not warped rotors? Before you go through the pain in the ass of changing the thrust arms, how long has it been since your rotors were cut or changed?

[eric5150]

Your shimmy is under braking? Are you sure its the thrust arms and not warped rotors? Before you go through the pain in the ass of changing the thrust arms, how long has it been since your rotors were cut or changed?

Rotors are fine, believe me, I checked those first. I've also got a bit of the 55-65 shimmy on the freeway, so it's bushings. I know that I wish it wasn't, but it is. Just had new tires put on, so I know that it's not those either. The car has 139K miles on it, the suspension bits look OEM, so I'm not sure that they've ever been changed.

Eric

[glen-sj]

The 18" breaker bar worked for me on both the upper and lower ball joint nuts. I did this with the car on jack stands. You might try to soak the nuts with a spray of WD40 overnight and try again, or use a cheater bar (a 3 to 4 ft long steel pipe that the breaker bar handle fit into, this would give you more leverage.

Good Luck
glen-sj

[eric5150]

The 18" breaker bar worked for me on both the upper and lower ball joint nuts. I did this with the car on jack stands. You might try to soak the nuts with a spray of WD40 overnight and try again, or use a cheater bar (a 3 to 4 ft long steel pipe that the breaker bar handle fit into, this would give you more leverage.

Good Luck
glen-sj

That's what I was afraid of - time to bust out the cheater pipe! I'm away this weekend, so I suppose I could give all the bolts a good soak of liquid wrench to loosen the things up.

Thanks for the tips.

Eric

[632 Regal]

umm... I had to drop the x tube low enough to get an impact on mine, fell right off with that. Make sure you torque the new ones in under load or at least in the vicinity of where they will sit under losd or your waste them in no time.

[Mobius]

So...

Yeah. I went down to the local hardware store, and picked up a nice quality box-end wrench that fit that thrust arm bolt.. Tossed my ratchet on the opposite side of the bolt and wedged it against the body somewhere.. Then I set up a hydraulic jack on the other end of the new box end wrench and went to town.

For the record.. It was a Wright Tool (http://www.wrighttool.com) wrench, and it's bent like a rainbow now - I was too scared to use my Craftsman wrenches in this particular feat. But I got the ****ing bolt off. That's all that matters.

[eric5150]

Thanks for the tips - I'm going to soak the thing down with some WD40 and let it sit overnight, hopefully that will help.

I've got the Bently on this, so I know about the torquing under load, but thanks for the reminder.

A hydralic jack and a bent wrench, huh? If it gets that difficult, I'll take it to my local indy and let them do it - at that point the cost/benfit of a DIY is just not worth the cash outlay involved.

Thanks to all who responded - I'll update on what happens.

Eric

[632 Regal]

I was quite perplexed when everyone made it sound so simple. I guess some cars have more room to get at it than others, no thin box ends, no ground down open ends etc. I HAD to drop my X tube in order to do anything.

[MBXB]

Maybe that space for a wrench is a V8 only thing.



I was quite perplexed when everyone made it sound so simple. I guess some cars have more room to get at it than others, no thin box ends, no ground down open ends etc. I HAD to drop my X tube in order to do anything.

[632 Regal]

Maybe that space for a wrench is a V8 only thing.

[MBXB]

Absolutely! LOL

[mikemaster]

Maybe that space for a wrench is a V8 only thing.

Nope, I was able to get a wrench on mine. 92 535