Suspension refresh - can't get A-arm off

[jyl]

Well, I stole a few 5 hours to work on the car today and made some progress. Front monoballs installed, new Bilstein strut inserts installed, separated strut from balljoint (will need new wedge bolts, I buggered them pretty good), removed front A-arm mounting brackets, removed bolts from cross-member and removed retaining caps from rear of A-arms.

I got stuck on removing the A-arm. Everything that needs to be unbolted is, the A-arm wiggles loosely, and now the Bentley manual says to "pull [A-arm] forward out of [cross-member] subframe. Well, the A-arm doesn't want to "pull forward". I can't really tell if the swaybar is holding it back or if something else is stuck.

Any tips? Do I simply have to use a lot of prying, cursing, and heavy mallet blows - or is there a trick?

BTW whoever worked on the car last used a lot of anti-seize - bless them.

[Fritz]

I just went through this fun exercise. The good news is that it means your bushings were fairly decent.

1. Buy six-pack of cold beer.

2. Allow yourself a fair amount of time.

3. Lie down or kneel down neer the front end of the a-arm.

4. Grab the front end of the a-arm near the front bushing and push and rotate the sucker as far as you can while pulling. After about tenn minutes you should have moved it about 1/4". There is still another 2" to go. Ignore blood on knuckles when they hit underbody.

5. Stop. Wipe the sweat away and have yourself a beer.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 until done.

Alternate method:

1. Buy case of cold beer.

2. Call friends and tell them you have a case of cold beer.

3. Tell em you can't get the darn a-arm off and that you are thinking you are getting old and weak. This will challenge their male egos and they will all take a turn.

Reading Huck Finn pays off more times than you can imagine.

[KTL]

If you've still got the sway bar installed in the A-arm, that is certainly what's holding you up. That thing is a mutha to get out of the A-arm.

Spray the sway bar end with a good shot of silicone spray to lube it up.

Wait 'til you try to reinstall the sway bar...............

Hooooo weeeeee! That takes some serious wrestling if you've got the A-arms already in place. Silicone spray is your friend here. TRUST me!

[Dave Ploss]

I did this this winter but I was taking the sway bar off anyway. I couldn't get the arms off easily but if you are going to take both of them off, it's only a couple more bolts to take the sway bar off. It comes off and goes on very easily as a unit.

Dave

[jpnovak]

You may want to drop the entire suspension to make access easier.

unbolt the steering rack and fuel pump. Then unbolt the two rear pick up bolts in the chassis. These will also be holding the rear of your sway bar.

Place your jack under the suspension cross member and then remove the last two bolts. Lower the crossmember, a-arm, and sway bars down. The adjuster caps have to be removed, then pull out the torsion bars. The A-arms should then come out with the end collar. I suspect these collars are your problem.

Heat evenly around the collar with a propane torch until it "sizzles". Grap with pliars and just twist off. You may be able to do this in the car but its much easier out. I assume you are replacing the bushings too?

[jyl]

Thanks everyone. I think I'll remove the sway bar too. Might as well give it a shot of paint too - appearance counts.

Not that this will be a surprise, but this board is great. I have the laptop sitting on the workbench during this project, and it's been among the handiest of my tools.

[Zeke]

Heat. It's the only way to go. It will destroy the bushing, but why be that far into the suspension and not replace?

[yeuporsch]

A little advice. Don't wiggle the a-arm too much, it will bend/warp the round hub at the rear and will cause alignment problem later on. Ask me how I know.

John

[jyl]

Zeke, the bushings are being replaced with Elephant Racing brass/steel bearings. I'm replacing all the suspension rubber with ER's stuff, except the sway bars which stay stock for now.

[jyl]

Hey, removing the sway bar did the trick. The sway bar and A-arms came off easy as pie. Spent a while tidying the wheelwells up with Simple Green, now they are shiny Baltic Blue like the rest of the car.

Interesting to see that the original rear A-arm bushings were indeed "flowed", i.e. no longer centered.

Now I have to bolt my new bench vise to my new workbench and light up my new propane torch before proceeding with the A-arm disassembly.

Can you tell I'm having to put together a working workshop just for this project?