megacrazy

Yup. Upper control arm/thrust arm whatever you want to call it. The strut stayed in the car. All you have to do is remove the lower 2 bolts that attach the strut to the knuckle. Maybe that's where the confusion was.

Rudeney

Oh, yes, you're correct - you must disconnect the struct from the hub, but the top of the strut remains attached to the shock tower. I thought you were saying that you did not have to remove the strut from the hub at all.

megacrazy

State of the bushings at 50k miles:

Rudeney

Yep, they are gone - time to replace!

AMG_Adon

hopefully someone who ordered from partsgeeks can help me out i ordered the for control arms seems the one of the upper control arms came with 2 washer like nuts and the other upper control arm didnt am i missing anything?

Rudeney

Each of mine came with a new nut. It is recommended to use a new one on the ball joint attachments to the hub.

AMG_Adon

Each upper control arm came with 2 nuts ? So that means I'm def missing 2 nuts from one of my upper control arm then

Rudeney

Actually, I think maybe only two of the set of four came with new nuts. I can't remember now if it was the "upper" or "lowers" that had them.

AMG_Adon

It's the upper .one of the set is missing new nuts the lower set doesn't come wit any at all

megacrazy

That's correct. The "upper" aluminum ones come with nuts. The black "lower" ones don't.

AMG_Adon

would it hurt to reuse the 2 old nuts from the old upper control arm?

Rudeney

Probably not. Generally, aluminum or other soft metal nuts or bolts need to be replaced, but steel is fine to reuse. I suspect that they extra nuts are included in case one used the nut as a "hammer point" to separate the ball joins from the hub, but using a proper tool, that would not be the case.

NickLouis

Rudeney

A pickle fork probably won't work. I used this tool for the ball joints and it worked very well:

http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/o...all+joint+tool

There is no need to jack the hub while removing anything YoOu only need vehicle weight on the hub when torquing the bolts for the control arm bushing at the frame.

NickLouis

Athe torque specs for the "upper" control arm same as the "lower" control arms?
50nm plus 60 degrees at ball joint and 80nm plus 120 degrees at frame.

Rudeney

Yes, those are the correct torques and same for both upper (torque strut) and lower (cross strut) control arms.

Khan 55

Great post. Will help me soon on repairing mine. So the shock never unload after you removed it from the steering knuckle? I thought one would have to compress the spring a bit.

Rudeney

No, the spring is trapped within the shock "cartridge". It just hangs from the top mounts while you do the work. In fact, you can easily the entire shock/spring assembly as one unit without and special tools.

Yidney

Rodney,

Changed my oil today and had the black oil coming from one bushing, so time to do all four. Two questions: What are the torque specs for the strut? Second, I note the numbers stamped on my arms are not even close to the numbers you gave, so I just want confirm they are all the same regardless of sport suspension, etc. My four numbers are:

Lower left: 188 203 10
Upper Left: 203 04 L (why are these such short numbers?)

Lower Right: 184 203 11 (I thought it would be 188 as well)
Upper Right: 203 05 R

Thanks.

Yidney

Also, I just went to Parts Geek where you got your parts, and for an '08 550 the first 8 parts listed are each arm with 2 different part numbers - all Lemforder - with slightly different prices. Any idea what the difference is? Looks they are stocked in different warehouses, but I can't see why somebody would pay $8 more for that.

Rudeney

I have no clue why partsgeek has those different prices/parts. Maybe they drop ship some? As for torque, its 50nm plus 60 degrees at ball joint and 80nm plus 120 degrees at frame.

Yidney

Rodney, do you have the torque specs for the 3 bolts holding the strut/shock tower to the hub?

Rudeney

Strut to steering knuckle is 110Nm.

clydem

I second the vote on this tool. Sometimes you have to go quite far & the joint will let go more with a loud bang than a pop. Scares the bejeezes out of me.


So I have a very steep driveway, the suspension usually goes from compressed to fully extended a lot and consequently, bushings rip. It's time to replace the arms/bushings.


Anybody have a link to the strut bearings & sway bar bushings procedure that is as good as this write-up? Since I'm in there anyway. (and time to replace the rotors too)


Thanks in advance,
Clyde M.

sailorben

On my version of the tool ball joint separator, it's quite a bit chunkier than the one in that link. But it's served us well. Well when I was changing over the track rod ends, on the one side, the ball joint just wouldn't budge. It even ended up shearing the pin that the tool pivots on. That was a nasty surprise.
I'm always cautious of the force that can be built up; with tools like these, so I try to keep a nice distance between any of me and the tool or joint!