ghunt

I started on this tonight...didn't have much luck, I went out to start working on it at 7:30 PM and it was still 85 degrees with really high humidity. So I was sweating buckets, fighting it and not being very happy. I got the passenger side apart, was stupidly trying to press the ball joint up out from the bottom with no luck...and of course did not even think to flip the press around and try pressing them down out from the top. Guess I'll try it again tomorrow before i resort to returning the ball joints and just ordering new control arms...

ghunt

OK, apparently you plain can't press the ball joints out of these control arms (at least not the originals). I tried several times with a press, there's no "lip" to press it out from the top and it won't budge coming up from the bottom. Oi. I thought for sure they pressed out from the top because the Moog ones I bought have a groove at the top and a circlip, but there's no top lip on them either.

I'm also a mite confused because when I took the spindle bolts out, there was antisieze on all the strut to spindle bolts and on the ball joint pinch bolts. So somebody's had this front end apart, though I'm not sure why because everyhing looks factory.

Anyway I just broke down and ordered control arms. Found a place that had them on ebay for $120 for both, shoulda just done that in the first place instead of spending $80 on just ball joints. Oh well...live and learn. At least I'm finally getting my front Motorsport P springs installed.

ffk_pennywise

Boooo! I didn't press mine out. I beat them out with a rather large sledge. It was NOT easy. Congrats on finding a deal on control arms though.

ghunt

Well, I was using a ball joint press kit with the control arm still on the car.

But, it's the same way I did the ball joints on my truck, with the same impact wrench, and they were easy! These ones apparently are not meant to be removed.

roegs

Wow....thats a great find for LCA's. Were those the GT500 lower arms, or aftermarket?

Use the search function for tips on changing them. I've not done mine yet, but the steering rack is in the way of one of the LCA bolts, and there are a couple of tricks that others have found to avoid lowering the steering rack.

Keep us posted!

ghunt

These were just some kind of aftermarket stock replacements. I couldn't find GT500 ones for less than $300 and I don't have that kind of money to spend right now. I'm kind of waiting to see how good of quality the ball joints are on the arms I bought, because if they look like junk I might just go ahead and swap them out for the Moog's I already bought, especially since I already lost $10 shipping on them and will probably lose another $10 if I send them back, essentially only getting $50 back out of them. I dunno.

Yeah, I saw something on a youtube video about the bolts behind the rack boots. It looks like I MIGHT be able to lift the swaybar and swing the tie rod ends up high enough for them to clear, but I'm not sure. We'll see, I guess.

JimsGT

+1 I just had that done last week. My '06 GT had dry rotted, cracked front lower control arm bushings, and the ball joints were going, so I upgraded to the GT500 lower control arms.($300 from Rehagen Racing) I also needed outer tie rod ends. (83,000 easy highway commuting miles, I didn't think this would happen already, wtf) Car front end feels better than when it was new now!

808muscle

I also replaced my LCA's with GT500 pieces. Got rid of all that clunking I had. Found mine on ebay for $250 but that was last year.