so how the heck does that happen,,, does the ball joint go in upside down,,, must be about equal length arms

 

here's the picture of it as it came out of the other car:



You can see that one side of the upper control arm is rounded, the other is straight. The rounded part is supposed to be toward the front, not the straight part. I just installed it the same way I received it.

 

woh, seems like that would mess the caster all up

 

yes, that is correct. I really don't know how they ran it on their car the way it is on mine now.

 

*sigh* this car is a ****.

So I was hoping last night I could swap the upper control arms on the front. We had put the bolts in from the outside, so we would have to remove the top of the shock tower to get access. Well I undid all the bolts at the top of the shock tower, but there isn't enough range of motion in the new lower A-arms to give me room to pull the shocks down out of the holes. It's at the bottom its travel, but there is still compression in the spring.

So the best ideas my friend and I could come up with:

1. Loosen the k-member bolts, drop the k member enough to pull out the shocks
2. Use a spring compressor while it's still installed, compress the shock absorber by hand to remove it

Of course, this is going to be an issue as well if I ever replace the shocks for any reason. Any input?

 

I just use a screwdriver and pry the shocks out of my lower A arm seat. Its a bit of work but the best solution. You could just use a spring compressor too and compress the spring a bit to make it easier

 

The fact that the spring is still under compression now makes me very, very leery of trying to pry the bottom part out. We unbolted it, but it's still wedged in there from the spring force.

 

You can't loosen the coil overs any more to relieve the tension on the spring?

 

I don't have coilovers, I have Bilsteins with Summit springs. They don't have many miles on them, so I figured I'd put those back in and sell the coilovers that came with everything. I removed the two bolts from the bottom and all the bolts up top, but it's still in compression.

 

Use a spring compressor then, it won't hurt anything.