[Guest]

Fellas,

About how long(time) to change out and replace the front upper/lower control arms and redo the inner/outer tie rods etc. How long for the basic front end rebuild? The dealer said it would take about 5.3(book) hours. How long for a compitent person with some skills?

ps. minus the alignment
Mike

 

[Guest]

If you've never done it before, figure it will take you most of a weekend to do. It probably shouldn't, but it will. I just did all of that, plus the steering gear, power steering hoses and springs and shocks. I had never done any of these things before and it took me, altogether, about 30 hours, give or take, over four days, including setup and cleanup at the beginning and end of each day and a few trips for tools and fasteners that I didn't know I was going to need before I started.

 

[Guest]

It depends what you want to do. I rebuilt my whole front end in 2 days, this included getting out all of the old bushings from the CAs.
Give us more details.

 

[Guest]

I'll be changing both upper and lower control arms(bushings are installed already), spindles and inner/outer tierods along with the center link, idler arm and front springs. I also will be doing new brakes(rotors/pads/stealth bolt/and lines) when it goes back together. I also have both lines for the oil cooler and tranny cooler that I planned on doing at that time also(not mandatory if running out of time).

Mike

 

[Guest]

Like I said, count on most of a weekend if you've never done this before. The upper control arms are a real PIA. There's almost no room to turn a wrench in there. These cars may be made to be driven by men (and really cool women) but they were meant to be worked on by Keibler (sp?) elves. You'll need to remove the intermediate shaft on the driver's side and on both sides I found that I had to muscle around some of the hard lines that are in the way to get the upper arms out. On the driver's side, in order to do that, I had to remove the small plastic bracket that holds some of the brake lines in place so they would move. You'll see what I mean when you get there.

If you haven't already, look over all the fasteners you will be removing and see if they look like they might be too rusty to go back on. It really helps to gather stuff like that in advance if you can.

If you don't have all the tools you need (like ball joint and tierod separators and spring compressor), take a few minutes and think about what will be required. It doesn't sound like you'll be separating the pitman arm from the steering gear, but if you need to for any reason, GET A PITMAN ARM PULLER. A regular old puller just won't do it. Take advantage of Autozone's free rental, It rocks. Hope this helps.

 

[Guest]

...took me about a week...I'd work a little here and a little there. Take your upper and lower control arms to a machine shop to have new bushings and the lower ball joint pressed in. I would not recommend replacing the Pitman arm unless your is bent...they really don;t go 'bad'. Pull the inner and outer tie rods off with the center link as one unit. Measure the distance from the center of the outer tie rod end housings and assemble your new rig before you install it. I'd go with solid tie rod adjusters while your at it. Use Moog parts...kind of pricey, but the best. Why not just go with the big ball joint lower control arms if you are replacing spindles??? You wil need a tierod separator and get one of those nice ball joint separator forks. Be sure to back off the ball joint nut a couple turns ONLY before you schmack it with the seaprator fork.