Hello and thanks for reading.

This weekend, I will be overhauling the front suspension (Lower and Upper Ball Joints, both Lower Control Arms (front and back LCA), Sway Bar Links and Tie Rods) and wanted to know the best order of disassembly and reassembly to save time and ease of procedure. While searching I have not found a guide for an overhaul but have found detailed procedures for replacing the Ball joint and the tie rods. In looking at it, I am thinking this might work...

1. Separate lower ball joint
2. Separate upper ball joint
3. Separate upper ball joint from Upper Control Arm
4. Remove front LCA
5. Remove back LCA and Sway bar link
6. Press out and press in lower ball joint
7. Reassemble back LCA, Sway bar link and ball joint
8. Reassemble front LCA
9. Reassemble upper ball joint
10. Remove and reassemble tie rods

Looking forward to your valuable insight to make this a little more enjoyable.

 

Here's what I did. It kept the knuckle attached at two points while changing out the LCA and ball joint. Then loosely attached the LCA and ball joints to change out the upper control ball joint and tie rods.

1. separated the front LCA and ball joint,
2. pressed out/in the lower ball joint,
3. replaced the front LCA
4. replaced the upper control arm ball joint
5. replaced the outer tie rods

Seemed to go okay.

On my car, the ball joints were the worst, the upper control arm ball joint was #2 worst.

I struggled with torque values too. I found two cheat sheets with different Values.

Conflicting torque values

The car feels awesome. Tightening the front end down is a nice refresh. Needs an alignment to complete the job.

Thanks for reading,

Steve