Front lower control arm removal issues

[WallyWest]

The frame side came right off, no problem at all.

The axle bolt though. I may have busted my Milwaukee impact wrench on it. It randomly switches speed settings and the high torque reverse setting barely spins at all now. It used to damn near twist your arm off.

The bolt is not rusty. And I already had the frame side loose so it wasn't being torqued by the arm. I even put a serious 2 foot breaker bar on it and jacked the handle up with a floor jack until the bar started to bend. Didn't budge.

I drenched it with liquid wrench and I'll hit it with heat tomorrow. Don't know any other tricks. Is there anything special about those C shaped clips around the edge of the bolt head? Doesn't appear to make contact with the bolt head, but I wasn't sure what that was for.

I did the rear arms a while back and the bolts came right out.

 

[fizzlebottom]

When I had this issue I ended up cutting the bolts with a sawzall. It may not look rusty, but it is completely fused to the bushing sleeve. Cut it and move on.

 

[WallyWest]

When I had this issue I ended up cutting the bolts with a sawzall. It may not look rusty, but it is completely fused to the bushing sleeve. Cut it and move on.

Did you cut the head off and punch it out? Or cut it in half through the bushing in the center?

 

[Vtx531]

Have to sort of cut through the bushing and bolt between the bracket and the control arm on both sides of the arm. Total pain in the ass. I used a grinder with cutoff wheel. Bigger the better. 4.5” is the very minimum and makes it a little difficult. If you just cut the head off the bolt then the arm will still be stuck in the bracket and unable to remove.

 

[Bufante]

I had the same issues. I was replacing the axle, so I just left them on the old Dana 30. Had to order just those two bolts. They aren’t cheap, as far as a bold goes!

 

[qslim]

I cut off the nut end, used a torch to get the rubber nice & soft, then used an air hammer with a punch end to get it out. The bolt was completely fused to the metal sleeve inside the bushing like others have already said. It was a mess.

 

[WallyWest]

Also, are those axle mount bolts supposed to be cam bolts? I don't think mine are. The head of the nut is centered on the washer. Or maybe that's part of the bolt head itself, can't really tell. But it's not an oval, off center washer like a cam bolt has.

 

[97' 4 Popper]

Also, are those axle mount bolts supposed to be cam bolts? I don't think mine are. The head of the nut is centered on the washer. Or maybe that's part of the bolt head itself, can't really tell. But it's not an oval, off center washer like a cam bolt has.

Only early models use cam bolts, your 2003 shouldn't have those. You can use them if you want to to adjust the angles and sometimes you'll see a later model where a po did that.

I just had to change my first control arm, front lower driver, I had a hard time centering the bolt before I could torque it down so I got the Johnny Joint washers from Mr Blaine. I had to file one of them down because of a weird kink in my control arm mount slot. Now I'm moving on to the others in a few weeks. I didn't bother to cut the head or nut off the axle side bolt, I went straight for the bushings which I figured were seized up. You can apply antiseize to the inside of the sleeve during install. Make sure to cut closer towards the control arm itself, I cut almost a half inch into my control arm bushing itself to avoid touching the mount.

Another thing to watch out for since you are in PA is rust inside the control arm mount area, my frame had a good sized hole after removing the rust from that area with a electric needlescaler.

 

[Breto31]

Did you cut the head off and punch it out? Or cut it in half through the bushing in the center?

I had to Sawzall one of my axle-end bolts too. It was fused to the bushing and was just spinning when I tried to loosen it. I cut the bolt head off, and cut the nut-side too…. I wasn’t reusing my CA’s though, so I want worried about damaging the bushing.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

I had that going on with 4 out of the 8 LCA bolts on my previous TJ. No impact wrench, breaker bar, torch heat, or penetrating lube touched it. I put a sawzall blade between the bushing and the bracket and cut through the sleeve and bolt. I went through 5 cheap harbor freight blades on the first one, but once I switched to Dewalt i spent far less time cutting all 4 than I had trying to bust the first one loose.

This of course destroys the bushing sleeve, but I didn't care because the whole point of removing them was to replace them.