01 Buick regal, controll arm

[Geo148]

How hard to replace? prob. both sides

 

[Chris142]

Upper? Lower? All? Just the bushings? More info needed here.

 

[Geo148]

lower arm. I think the bushings might be going out. I have a slight wobble after bumps in the road it settles down right away.
I might do the whole assmbly if they come with a ball joint. I have 143K on the car.

 

[Merkava_4]

Piece-a-cake. You just unhook the ball joint on the end of the control arm from the spindle, unhook your sway bar end-links from the control arm, unbolt the control arm from the frame, it's out. The strut just stays where it's at.

 

[cousincletus]

Some cars it's better to take the control arm to the machine shop and have the new ball joint pressed in. Not sure about GM FWDs.

 

[bdcardinal]

on a lot of ford's when you caculate in the price of replacement ball joints and bushings, and labor to press them in and out, its cheaper to just buy new control arms.

 

[Merkava_4]

I'd keep back the old control arms and have the ball joints and bushings changed; that way they'd be ready for swapping out the next time.

 

[eljefino]

The rivets on GM lower control arms are rarely any fun.

The bonus is replacement ball joints usually have zerks.

Consider an alignment afterward, there seems to be a loosely defined zone for ball joint alignment.

 

[Merkava_4]

Quote:

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The rivets on GM lower control arms are rarely any fun.

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I grind the top of the rivet flat with my Dremmel cut-off wheel, then I snap a dimple into it with my spring loaded center punch, then I drill a pilot hole through the rivet. After that, I follow up with a drill the same size or maybe one wire gage smaller than the rivet hole.

The most important part is getting your pilot hole on center.

One final note:

Don't even think about using a dull drill bit.