I have a 95 GL 2.5L. I just finished replacing the driver's side lower control arm. I had front end shake. Went in for a frontend alignment and they told me my control arm was bad.
Reading the manual, it tells me that to remove the drivers side lower control arm. the engine has to be lowered, engine chassis, etc. has to be disconnected!!!
I came up with an alternate routine. I was able to remove the control arm without dropping the engine. The control arm 4 bolts holding it to the chassis. Two of the bolts I was able to remove. The third bold I cut the head off with a hack saw to remove it - was rather easy to do so. the 4th bold I had to grind down one side of the upper lip to remove it so it cleared the trans housing - not much had to be removed just one side of the bolthead lower lip. The control arm bushings were very loose which caused quite a bit of play. When refastening the control arm. the bolt hole where I caut the bolt in half was replaced with a new bolt. The new bolt was reversed and pushed up from the botton with the nut on top - fitted perfectly. Since I was at this level, I went ahead and replaced the half shaft - rebuilt unit was only 60 dollars.
Had to purchase a new axle bolt from Ford. That cost me 6 dollars. Auto Zone provides free loaner tools which allowed me to pull the half-axle and to separate the ball joint from steering knuckle.
Went in and got a lifetime alignment. Car drives quite nicely. Technician did say that the caster was a hair off - apparently you can't adjust this on these cars. He said that it would not cause any problems. I suspect that if I replace the other control arm this would bring it within spec....I'm not planning to do this to say the least.
Overall a 600 job for just the control arm replacement ending up costing me about 190 plus 90 dollars for a life-time allignment and some bruised knuckles......
