Hey everyone,

Just a few questions for when I tackle this. I think my LCA bushings are shot. I can't find anything loose and the truck bangs, shakes and drifts. When the tires catch uneven parts of the road, it pulls. My steering wheel is not turned to one side like a poor alignment (been there too many times this year already). A few people here have heard a video I took and it seems to point to the bushings being shot. I torqued the bolts last summer when the truck was in the air without weight on it and I read that can twist and in time destroy the bushings.

How hard are the bolts to get out? I'm going to get replacement Moog LCA and new bolts and good blades for the saw-zall just in case. I hope to hot have to cut them out though. Anyone have any tips? I'm limping it until August when I have vacation and can take my time in case something happens.

 

I just did this on my '02 Expy. I used replacement Moog LCAs too. It's not terribly difficult to get the bolts in and out. As you said, when you put everything back together, support the front of your truck by the suspension to put the bushings near their ride-height orientation before tightening. Ideally, put the wheels and tires on, and put the truck on ramps. I used jack stands under the spindle ball joints, which should be close enough.

I don't know what alignment issues you've had. But while you've got the suspension apart, there are two things I'd recommend. Go ahead and install a caster kit on the upper arms, if you haven't already done it. And on my truck, the rear bolt hole of the driver side LCA was slotted about an inch from the factory. I assume this allows a rough side-to-side adjustment to be made at the factory to account for frame assembly tolerances. But I reasoned that this could allow that bolt to shift and throw the alignment off. We loosely assembled the suspension with a big, heavy washer on the outside of the frame horn where the slot was. We pulled diagonal measurements from the lower spindle ball joints to the rear of the frame, and used these to adjust the LCA position within that slot. Once we had it within 1/16 inch, measured at the ball joint, we welded the washer to the frame so that it couldn't move again. Yours may be different. But I'd look into it.

 

Bolts should slide ride out. The key is getting the arm in the correct spot that the bolt and the "tube" part of the bushing is in line with the bolt

 

Good hear... that's what I thought.

As for alignment issues I installed a camber kit... that's what I think caused this issue. For months, shops would not tighten the bolts to spec and the alignment would come out and be a nightmare to drive. Now it's tight, but the bushings are worn and the truck vibrates like hell over bumps and clunks over bumps when the suspension loads enough.

 

Mark the head of the camber bolt and onto the frame and line your marks back up to get the alignment as close as possible

 

Yeah I was thinking of even taking pictures. Mines a bit different. It has a plate and the nut is welded to an oblong washer and it rotates as one unit between the plate.

 

Well, I just ordered the new Moog LCA's from Summit. Also going to pick up a digital caliper tomorrow from HF (good reviews and on sale) and measure my old Upper control arm that I have. I'm going to get the measurements for the boots and match them to energy suspension so I can get rid of the moog ones hat have come off. Really think I'm done with Moog after this. Their boots are a huge complaint online. I can't get over it. The Motorcraft control arms are just so expensive... 250+ a piece. I got both lower fully loaded with bushings and BJ's for 335 shipped. I'm going to hang on to the OEM ones and take my time and reload them. Be a nice backup.

 

I'm tacking a few things with this project: New LCA's to hopefully get rid of my horrid driving experience and replace all dust boots. I used my new caliper I measured my old oem upper BJ after I removed the boot. I ordered 2 sets of energy polyurethane dust boots to see which fit better. I bought slightly undersized per Energy's measuring procedure. I also ordered 2 new Moog Lower BJ's because I want to take the boots off and do the measurements so that I can order 2 sets of proper dust boots and install before I assemble anything so I don't have to worry about this again. Also gives me an extra set for quick replacement down the road. Moog has tons of complaints for their junk boots and it seems that these fit very snug and keep contamination out. I have All 3 Moog boots coming off on my truck and they are between 1 and 2 years old. Unacceptable. I'll update this when I confirm the part numbers are correct and hopefully this will finally solve this issue as I have found many posts on here about which boots to use.

 

Do you over grease them?

 

Apparently yes... moog's fault. They stopped including the grease vent. You always were told to go til it starts to ooze. Now you need to make sure they're firm. Defeats the purpose. You need to be able to keep them freshly greased. This should solve that regardless

 

Damn wish I would of saw this earlier I have some basically new oem LCA I would of sold you. They just need ball joints.

 

Thanks man, I wanted brand new though... appreciate the offer though.

Well I tackled this Thursday night. Never done anything like this before but I did it. Pat had told me a trick with the jack to get the LCA out off the spindle taper and it worked like a charm. Crazy how much work is involved to get the the point of removal but I got the LCA out. Came out with no issues. Took me about 4-5 hours (again, never done anything like this before) and I find out that the bushing looks to be in great condition. Put the new one on and finished that side Friday morning. The lower BJ had a small bit of play so that was worth it. Just odd since it's only a year old.

At this point I'm thinking something else must be going on. I didn't want to go through replacing parts I didn't have to so as I'm slowly going through the passenger side, I went to move the sway bar end-link and it's frozen vertically:



On the left, that was frozen straight. I had to smash it once I got it off and then it had a ton of play/slop. When I got the replacement from the Parts shop in town, I saw that it had a grease fitting on that joint and this one did not. (both are Moog Btw). For less than a 2 year old part I was disappointed. My theory was that since it was frozen and could not articulate, it would smash up on the bar over every bump and cause the obnoxious bumping and scary handling. Turns out this was correct. That stupid freaking end-link caused that. I'm so glad I caught this before I tore the passenger side anymore. Unreal. Aligned at Ford and finally after 2+ years of dealing with moron shops, bad parst, a million alignments, she's driving good! I consider the drivers side LCA replacement a good bang-for-the-buck course since it was $150 and I got to learn more.