Since I’ve done this a few times now, I thought I’d share my experiences with freshening up the Sunbird’s control arms this time around.<\/p>\n
Ball joint removal:<\/strong> For drilling, one side of the rivets has a center indentation to start the drill. At this age, they may no longer provide a good center to drill anymore due to rust etc. The other tricky part will be setting the control arm up to get a straight hole, since they are not exactly flat on the opposite side. One more thing about this method is, I wouldn\u2019t advise using a .500(1\/2)\u201d drill as others do – the hole is actually closer to .453(29\/64)\u201d and you want to minimize material loss which may weaken the mounting points. If your hole is not dead center, you\u2019ll want to go smaller still. Only drill out enough just to get it out, and make sure your hole is as centered and as straight as possible and you will be ok. The bolts that replace the rivets are 12mm in the kit I got, so you may have to drill out the hole a bit to fit them, but that is better than blowing the hole out too large and probably also changing its location when trying to get out the rivets.<\/p>\n To be able to press out the rivets, you\u2019re going to have to use a cutoff or grinding wheel to get the head off at least one side of the rivets. The heads on the lower side are shallower than the top side, so to make it a little easier, grind them off. You may want to try to grind the head a little below the surface of the arm if you can, while trying to avoid grinding the arm. Any lip remaining will make it hard to press out, especially if you are going to try to hammer it out. With a hydraulic press, it is not quite as big a deal, it will just fold the small amount of lip over as it goes. \u00a0Pressing them out can mushroom the mounting holes in the control arm a bit on the far side. I would suggest you put in some ball joints (new, old, or .281(9\/32)\u201d thick material) and vice, C clamp, or hammer them carefully back to flat before putting things back together.<\/p>\n Bushing removal:<\/strong> I found on my factory 128k mile control arms that all that had to be done for 3 out of 4 was hacksaw one side of the rubber bushing flange around the outside edge to weaken it enough so it would fold up when I pounded them out the other side of the housing. You also can hack the whole “rubber flange” part off if you like. On the fourth, I had to resort to drilling some holes in the rubber to weaken it and loosen the rubber\u2019s hold. \u00a0Just be careful of chewing up the inside of the control arm housing when doing this, the drill wants to walk. Also, when this happens, it may leave some rubber behind in the bore which you will have to find a way to scrape out before installing the new bushings.<\/p>\n Installation:<\/strong> The only other thing of note when going to install the control arm and spindle, is just as you may have already found if you\u2019ve taken them out, it may be easier to install them as a unit. Once the driveshaft enters the picture, there is no room to install the castellated nut on the ball joint, or any way to torque it either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since I’ve done this a few times now, I thought I’d share my experiences with freshening up the Sunbird’s control arms this time around. Ball joint removal: If they\u2019ve never been replaced, you unfortunately are going to have to get … Continue reading
\nIf they\u2019ve never been replaced, you unfortunately are going to have to get the factory ball joint rivets out first. You can either attempt to drill them out, or grind the heads and press or pound them out. Each method has its difficulties.<\/p>\n
\nYou can burn bushings out with a torch, but I don\u2019t find it necessary due to their design in this case. They are somewhat hourglass shaped, so they don\u2019t contact the entire inside of the arm, making them a little easier to get out because they fuse to the arm in fewer places. If you do want to torch them though, I\u2019d keep the heat toward the center of the bushing or the steel bolt tube; these aren\u2019t the most rugged of control arms, and you could probably distort or melt the stamped metal pretty easily. Another word of caution when doing this, and I have a feeling this is pretty rare, but somehow I had one of them build up pressure once and shoot the center tube right out of the bushing. (It wasn’t a J control arm.)<\/p>\n
\nInstalling the new bushings and ball joints is pretty straight forward. The ball joints simply bolt in with three new bolts (usually supplied with the ball joints,) and the bushings you should be able to push or tap in easily after you\u2019ve greased them, assuming you\u2019re upgrading to polyurethane while you\u2019re in there – which you should, and you won\u2019t have to do this again for a long time, and will also improve handling while you\u2019re at it.<\/p>\n