I have replaced all of the components of my front suspension with the exception of the Lower Control Arms, (LCA), and I would like to tackle them soon. In fact, after doing the rest of the suspension I took the truck to a shop to have them replace the LCA's since I didn't want to mess with the torsion bar removal and I needed an alignment anyway. They soon called to tell me the torsion bars were seized in place and that they couldn't remove them without the possibility of damaging the torsion bars with heat or hammering and since the torsion bars are not available from anywhere other than a bone yard they didn't want to take the risk so I'm stuck doing this myself. I've been reading as much as possible about this subject I'm not convinced that I have all the info. I'd love to hear from someone who knows about this in task in depth. The fact that I still need to work and pay bills means that I'll need minimal down time.

I know I can I press the Lower Ball Joints, I had replaced the LBJ's in the past, at approximately 120k miles with a press and now the Left LBJ has failed again as well as the bushings at 278k so it's time to replace the entire suspension including the LCA's.

Now here is my question, after removing the rest of the suspension and steering components from the LCA as well as releasing the tension at the keys, what would stop me from sliding the control arm off of the torsion bar without removing the torsion bar other than the rust for the smart *****es out there.

So my idea is to remove the bolts that fasten the LCA to the frame and lower it enough to slide it off the end of the torsion bar and slide the new one on and bolt it back up, would this work?

From my perspective it looks as though the hexagon socket on the control arm just slides over the torsion bar so I can simply slice the old control arm at the socket with an angle grinder being careful not to damage the torsion bar and this should free everything up and I wouldn't have to worry about removing the cross-member to free up the keys which are also seized.

Does this make sense and if not, why?
I need to get this done next weekend since I'm getting uneven wear on my tire and it's clunking pretty bad. Thanks in advance for any input.

John

 

Hi, Did you get your LCAs replaced? I'm looking at having to do this on my 2002.

 

I did get them replaced and it wasn't very difficult. I raised and supported the truck on stands. Leaving the front suspension hanging, which in turn releases most of the tension applied by the torsion bars, I used an angle grinder and cut through the top of the hexagon shaped socket on the LCA. I made sure to mark the torsion bar so I knew which side of the hexagon end of the torsion bar went into the "top" of the hexogon socket on the new LCA. Then I simply lowered the truck to the ground and the force of the torsion bars opened up the sockets on the LCA's. From there it's easy to deal with the torsion bars. Something to note, the metal used for the LCA was much softer than I expected so be careful not to cut the torsion bar as they can be easily damaged. Now just remove everything else, of course the through bolts connecting the LCA to the frame were seized as well but a little finesse and you'll get it.

Good luck and always exercise caution when working with items under tension.

 

Thanks for the info. My Ford manual says the ball joints are not serviceable and the LCA has to be replaced. But, there are lots of youtube videos about replacing just the ball joints. So, that is what i will be doing, replacing just the ball joints.