My front lower control arms have been shot for a while now. Terrible wear on the inside of the front tires, even after repeated alignments. Slight vibration under braking, even after new brakes. Lots of driveline lash when shifting under power. New from Ford, even from fordpartsonline, would have cost $250; money I don't have. The local Ford dealer wanted $700 to install them - the left side requires the subframe to be dropped to do it properly.
So, I decided to try something new. People have been filling their motor mounts with flexible urethane for a while. I figured trying to add this material couldn't hurt. I got a set of arms off a 96 Mystique at a junkyard for $50. One tube of 3M Windo-Weld costs $10. The 3M part number of the material is "0 51135-08609", and it is marketed as windshield sealer. I picked mine up at a Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes store. I filled the area of the rubber bushing front and back with the urethane.
This job is
not for the feint of heart. Unless you are willing to lower the subframe, there are 2 bolts that will not come out the top of the arm because the trans is in the way. I cut them off with a carbon grit hacksaw blade (no air tools available). The two bolts that are directly below the driveshafts are also quite tricky to remove. You have to unbolt the rear motor mount (aka roll restrictor) and jack up the trans to get enough room. There are 2 types of bolts ("big" and "small") for the control arms and they alternate in location on the arm (big, small, big, small from end to end). My local dealer does not stock them, so I had to buy two of each on special order. With their nuts a set of 4 bolts ran me $30. When re-installing the bolts that go in upside down (i.e. you cut the old ones off)
use Loctite Red to seal the nuts on there. You don't want them falling out. You also need to use a few washers to keep the bolts from sticking up too high and hitting the bottom of the trans.
I couldn't quite get the new driver's side ball joint into the spindle, no matter how hard I tried.
Cost me another $30 to bring it to my mechanic and have him finish the job. I even broke a 15mm socket trying to get one bolt off (good thing it was a Craftsman!).
My junkyard listed the cutoff date for this style of control arm as Dec 1997 (but give or take depending on supply depletion at Ford). The "old" style have 4 bolts and horizontal bushings. The "new" style have 2 bolts and vertical bushings. The Escape uses the new style, and I think all New Cougars use the new style as well. So, all Gen 1 CDW27 and early 98's use this style.
All told this cost me: $50 (arms) + $10 (urethane) + $30 (new bolts) + $30 (mechanic charge) = $120 installed. Much better than $700. With all that Loctite on there, those arms aren't coming out unless the engine gets removed. Only driving around for one day, I can notice the difference. No more braking vibration, much less lash under power, and I'll be getting a fresh alignment tomorrow.
My next project will be to fill the rear mount with this stuff, since I have a bunch left.
OK, on to the pics:
1) Junkyard Arm, shows bushing condition before urethane (not good, but better than the ones that I removed):
2) Other Junkyard Arm:
3) Junkyard Arm after urethane:
4) This is a pic of the entire arm (this one was removed from the car):
5) 3M Windo-Weld:
6) OWN3D by the driver's side ball joint: :-)
