Undoing the Front Suspension (driver side)

Last time, we removed the springs from the front suspension. We also saw indications that the springs are stock springs. The eventual goal of all this excercise is to renew the front suspension and make any changes necessary to prevent the car from bottoming out.

So, in order to renew the front suspension, you need to:

a) Take it apart - remove every part from the car.
b) Clean up the parts
c) Replace any non-usable parts with new parts
d) Put it all together.

Part A is easy, especially now that the springs have been removed. Basically, it comes down to: "if you see a nut or bolt, remove it."

Part B is a bit more involved, since it involved removing years of dirt, undercoating, overspray paint, rust, and other nasties that have deposited themselves on the suspension.

Part C is simple: order needed parts, use a credit card to pay. How simple is that?

Part D is the reverse as A. Easier said than done. I hope not too bad, though.

I think a brief description of the suspension is in order:
- The front suspension is made up of two A-Arms and a vertical upright member. The upright holds a spindle/axle on which the front wheels revolve. The spindle carries a hub and rod bearings, as well as the disk brake rotors. The brake caliper is attached to the upright as well.

The lower A-arm is made up of two separate arms, bolted together with a ball joint assembly which connects the lower a-arm to the upright.

The upper A-Arm is made up of a single control arm mounted almost transversely from the upright to the car chassis, and a diagonal caster arm, connecting the top of the upright to the front inner fender, towards the front of the car.


The lower A-arm have rubber/metal bushings that attach them to the chassis, as well as a lower ball joint that attach the arms to the upright. All three of these (ball joint, bushings) need to be replaced in my car, since they are worn and dirty and all.

The upper A-arm also has two ball joints that wear out (at the inner fender, and at the top of the upright.) There is also two bushings on the transverse control arm that need to be replaced. However, this control arm is not adjustable, and there are aftermarket replacements that allow you to adjust camber and the such. So rather than replacing the control arm bushings, I'll just buy a complete control arm assembly.

So, the total number of parts I need to get (per side)
2 A-arm bushings
1 lower ball joint
1 upper ball joint
1 inner fender ball joint
1 adjustable control arm.

This takes care of Part C - see, simple! And we were not even trying, yet.


Back to A:

First, I removed the brake caliper. This adds some clearance, allows me to move the brake lines out of the way without worrying too much about breaking it. Of course, the line want to spill all of its contents out, and so I had to collect it all with a spill tray. Note that brake fluid is corrosive, and will eat paint! I did not catch this in time, and some of it spilled on parts of the suspension.

After the brake caliper was gone, I wanted to remove the disk brakes. On this kind of car, the disc rotors are bolted to the inside of the hub. Which means: you must remove the hub before removing the rotors.

Hmmm.. how does one do this?

Well, I decided - "I am not sure how to do this, so I'll just remove the complete upright first - hub, disc rotor, and all." After removing a few brackets from behind the upright, I used my handy tie rod ball joint separator, and separated the bottom and top A-arms. Of course, the whole thing fell down onto the ground, making a big racket and scarying the crap out of me.

So, I picked up the complete upright assembly, and after pondering for a few minutes, I decided to put it aside and work on the A-arms.

One thing I noticed right away was how badly worn were the a-arm bushings. The A-arms are supposed to rotate up and down. They did this OK on my car, but they also could be slid about 1/2" forwards and backwards! Holy cow - can only guess how much they slid under heavy breaking! Thinking about it, I am a bit lucky I made it home when I bought the car.

The bottom A-arm is held in place by a cast-metal pivot arm, held in place with the chassis by for bolts. Taking them out was simple - soak in PB Blaster, get a breaker bar, and undo the bolts. This took about 10 minutes, and the whole lower a-arm assembly come out.

The upper a-arm was not as easy. The front caster arm was simple - unscrew the two bolts from the ball joint, and the thing comes out. The problem is that, once you do that, you must loosen the adjusting nuts and rod. This is tricky once you take these out of the car. So, first, add a bunch of PB blaster to the adjustment rod and nuts, and loosen them. Then, you proceed to removing the front arm. Once removed, undoing the adjusting rod is simpler, since it's already loosened up.

The next thing was removing the control arm. This involves loosening a nut and bolt from the inside of the engine compartment. To get to it, I had to go through the front of the car to access it (the radiator, alternator are not installed, as I am also replacing the water pump - see older post.) I must admit, I do not know how anyone can remove this without removing half the engine - I am sure there is away, though. After a bit of work the nut/bolt came loose, and out came the control arm.

At this point, all the parts were separated from the car. I must admit, it is kind of weird to not see anything in the wheel well. Kinda scary, too!

Next up, it's time to separate the lower a-arms from the pivot rod. The a-arms are held to the pivot rod with a pair of nuts, which are covered by metal caps. These metal covers are pressed into place - how to remove them? Hmmm..

- First, apply liberal amounts of PB Blaster (penetrating oil.) PB is my friend.

- Then, I tried vise grips. After about 20 minutes, I gave up. These things are a pain in the butt!

- After chatting with a few folks (including my dad), we figured a chisel and some encouragement provided by a Big Freaking Hammer might help. And guess what - it worked. Chisel and hammer take the things out in about five minutes

What I found under the caps was depressing - tons of dirty, old grease, and nasty goo. Hidden in there were a nut and a washer. After cleaning things up a bit, I went at it with a 24mm wrench (and my little friend, Mr. Impact Wrench) and took the nuts out, and separated the A-arms from the pivot.





Finally, the hub and upright remained, waiting to be taken apart. The hub and disk assembly has a metal cover similar to the suspension metal caps. So I figured, if the chisel/hammer worked before, maybe they will work here, too. And guess what - they did. The cap came off in a minute. Inside the hub, I removed the castellated nut/pin, and the whole hub/disc assembly came off from the axle/spindle. Piece of cake. Removing the two screws that hold the rotor to the hub freed them from each other.

I also took a picture of the caster arm (the front member of the upper A-Arm,) just in case how it goes together. The whole thing was covered in grime, overspray, and greasy dirt. I am assuming the notch in the middle of the arm is there on purpose (to allow mechanics to use a wrench to adjust,) and not some overly-zealous alignment specialist...

That's it - all the pieces were now separated. They all look nasty dirty! Part A is now done - for the driver side. I still have the passenger side left to go. That will be next.