After months of postponing changing the control arms, I finally did them myself this past weekend. What a project! It took me a lot longer than I thought it would (then again, what project on this car doesn't?). I got the new control arms from
www.fordpartsonline.com and got them at a good price and they arrived quickly.
The problem was installing the new ones were impossible without compressing the sping and strut, as the control arm does not move down enough to install it with the suspension fully unloaded. After disassembling the entire left side suspension (control arms, tie rods, inner CV joint, stablizer bar end links, spring and strut assembly), I then came to the conclusion the only way to get the new arms in was to use a hydraulic jack under the ball joint and load the suspension so I could get the control arm mounting points level with the sub-frame. The trouble was everytime I tried to jack it up, it slid out toward me since it wasn't connected. The solution was to use a come-along connected to the floor jack and to the other side of the frame. That way it kept the whole assembly straight as I jacked it up, and allowed me to pull the control arm into its spot on the frame. And of course I learned the hard way that if the drive axle moves outwards too much once you have the control arm disconnected, the tripod bearings on the inner CV joint will come apart and the driveshaft won't move back in until you pull the boot off and reassemble the bearings. What a greasy mess that was. It would have been nice if the Haynes manual warned me of this stuff. All I got was "remove the control arm" and "installation is the reverse of removal procedure." Yeah, right :rolleyes:
Thanks to Bradness for the tip on cutting the two front bolts on the left side instead of jacking up the engine. That worked great and was a huge time/grief saver.
Anyway, all of this work paid off, as that was the problem for sure. The car drives straight now, and that's without even having it aligned yet. I could see the bushing completely worn out on the left side, and could move the mount easily with my fingers. It's like the rubber just tore in several pieces. I'll try to take a picture of it so you can see.
