basshed

Evening,
I have a '14 V6 Mustang I'm slowly building up. I'm tackling the control arms & I can't for the life of me break the upper control arm bolt free - the one inside the car under the rear seat. I've applied a breaker bar AND a air impact wrench. What kills me is I've seen pictures of people going at it with a standard ratchet wrench. I'm replacing the control arm & the bracket so any input on breaking it free would be appreciated. The socket it takes is a 24mm which is much bigger than I've seen listed used by others... did they change the bolt for '14?

Norm Peterson

2011 and later used a larger bolt that takes a LOT more torque than the 2010 and earlier cars.

That bolt could be torqued down to as much as 240 ft-lbs, as that's what BMR specifies in their 2011-up bracket instructions (step 13).

The earlier cars only needed 129 ft-lbs, which is do-able by a reasonably strong person with standard square drive wrenches.

http://bmrsuspension.com/siteart/install/UCM002.pdf


Norm

Scott2

24" breaker bar and if necessary a 3' piece of 3/4" or 1" pipe (whatever size required to slip into the breaker bar handle) and have Wheaties for breakfast. Good luck!

I have an 08 and there was Loctite on the factory bolt. I can't remember if it was high or medium strength, but based on the effort it took to do it could have been high strength red.

Matt's 95 Stang

I have 1'' metal pipe thats about a foot long that I use as a make shift breaker bar (slipped over the wrench) and man with that combo I have not come across a bolt I cant loosen.

Matthew

BrazenStang

I have a '12 GT. I was having the same problem. I split a damn socket trying to break that bad boy loose. I decided to do LCA's first, and I will be getting back to the UCA in a week or so. I bought a new 24 mm impact socket and I plan to use the longest extension on my breaker bar that will fit without hitting the front seats. It would be easiest if you know someone with a 3/4" or 1" drive impact wrench, but they can be tough to come by. Good luck!

IndecisiveS197

...how the hell do you torque it back to 240 ft-lbs when you're done!?

Norm Peterson

With something like this.

(It makes torqueing those 100 ft-lb lug nuts quite a bit easier, too).


Norm

Stangette

Do you have a small torch? try heating it up a bit.

basshed

I went with a larger air impact wrench & some taps on my breaker bar with a 3lb sledge. still won't budge. Glad to hear it's tough bolt to crack on the '11+. I'm going to take it to a shop just to let them put a heavy duty impact on it. The rest I can get myself from the bottom. And the new bolt is the smaller one from prior years so it only needs to be torqued to 129 ft-lbs.

Norm Peterson

Using a small-bolt bracket to replace a big-bolt bracket makes me a little uneasy . . . Ford significantly upgraded that bolt for a reason.

If it was me, I'd arrange to get the correct bracket.

But at the very least you should plan on inspecting that particular bolt for pulling through the body sheetmetal, and if the bolt is long enough you should use a heavy close fitting washer under the bolt head to spread the bolt load out better so it won't be as likely to do that.


Norm