That damn upper control arm bolt!

fuse

fuse

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So I'm in the middle of refreshing my stock control arms and things are going well. Then I get to the driver's side front upper control arm, and the nut at the axle starts to loosen up, then the flag bolt just starts to spin.

IMAG1083.jpg


I have like three turns left to get the nut off, and none of the various clamps or tools I tried could hold the flag well enough to get those last few turns. Argh!

There's plenty of room to get a tool in on the end of the bolt — if only it had a regular hex head instead of the stupid flag. :mad:

I know a lot of people have cut these bolts to get them out, but I'm going to get a replacement bolt before I cut it, and that gives me time to stop and think about what I'm doing. I might try to clean up the threads at the end of the bolt to see if I can reduce the torque needed to remove the nut.

Does anyone have any other suggestions to remove this bolt?
 
Can you hammer the bolt out enough to get a pair of channel locks or a vise grip to bite on the flag nut?
 
bobthetj03 said:
Can you hammer the bolt out enough to get a pair of channel locks or a vise grip to bite on the flag nut?
Click to expand...
I may have spent an hour trying to do that with various tools yesterday. Channel locks, vice grips, screwdriver jammed in between the control arm and bushing to keep the flag from riding up, screwdriver jammed under the flag to try to hold it, socket on the hex head, box end on the hex head. No luck.

You can see from the gouge on the control arm that the flag is sprung tight against the control arm when it spins, which means it won't move out further than that.

I had no problem tightening it back to spec, though. :)
 
fuse said:
FWIW, the bolt is marked Class 10.9. And the spec doesn't say it, but the nut seems to be prevailing torque.
Click to expand...

10.9 is the metric equivalent of a grade 8 bolt. If the nut is a PT nut, then it's a one time use nut. Get a new one.
 
bobthetj03 said:
10.9 is the metric equivalent of a grade 8 bolt. If the nut is a PT nut, then it's a one time use nut. Get a new one.
Click to expand...
It will be all new hardware regardless of how I get it out. I don't want to put a problem fastener back in.

I might try drilling through the flag first. Unless there are better ideas.
 
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Yup... Frustrating. I think I used a crescent wrench in mine. Kept slipping off, but I'd get a little bit of movement on the but each time. Eventually, it came apart.

If you have a small c clamp, can you clamp the flag nut to the arm?
 
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Ranger_b0b said:
Yup... Frustrating. I think I used a crescent wrench in mine. Kept slipping off, but I'd get a little bit of movement on the but each time. Eventually, it came apart.

If you have a small c clamp, can you clamp the flag nut to the arm?
Click to expand...
I tried that!
 
Nicholas said:
Does anyone know if replacing your stock uppers will cause the need for another alignment if their still the same stock arms?


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Click to expand...
I'm expecting not, since they're the same spec as the old parts. I guess if your old parts were in really bad shape and you had aligned to compensate you might have to adjust when you put new parts in. But if your old parts were that bad, they'd probably have too much slack to allow for a proper alignment.

FWIW, I currently have one new upper control arm on the passenger side and one old upper control arm on the driver's side, and it hasn't affected my alignment.
 
fuse said:
So I'm in the middle of refreshing my stock control arms and things are going well. Then I get to the driver's side front upper control arm, and the nut at the axle starts to loosen up, then the flag bolt just starts to spin.

View attachment 57812

I have like three turns left to get the nut off, and none of the various clamps or tools I tried could hold the flag well enough to get those last few turns. Argh!

There's plenty of room to get a tool in on the end of the bolt — if only it had a regular hex head instead of the stupid flag. :mad:

I know a lot of people have cut these bolts to get them out, but I'm going to get a replacement bolt before I cut it, and that gives me time to stop and think about what I'm doing. I might try to clean up the threads at the end of the bolt to see if I can reduce the torque needed to remove the nut.

Does anyone have any other suggestions to remove this bolt?
Click to expand...

The little tongue just bends back and slips right? Have you tried c-clamping it at the point where it wants to bend back to hold it in place? I did my upper control arms not too long ago and it did slip as well, but if I remember right, I just hammered it back a bit and held it there with something while applying torque to the nut on the other side. Can't exactly recall what I used for that, hence the c-clamp suggestion.
 
When that tab is at about the 7 or 8 o'clock position, can you hammer the end of the tab inward, to bend it more, and keep it from sliding up over the control arm? Can't really tell from the photo if there is enough tab to do that...

Or maybe use a pipe wrench to hold the end of the bolt.
 
Last edited:
glwood said:
When that tab is at about the 7 or 8 o'clock position, can you hammer the end of the tab inward, to bend it more, and keep it from sliding up over the control arm? Can't really tell from the photo if there is enough tab to do that...

Or maybe use a pipe wrench to hold the end of the bolt.
Click to expand...
That is what I did glwood.
 
I don't get the purpose of using a flag bolt in that application. Isn't the purpose of a flag bolt so the tab is held by something, so you can loosen the nut?

I guess it is designed to only work when you're tightening the nut.
 
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