i was at my techs garage and he said the control arms bushings were shot because the power steering was leaking down on it. now, here's the question, can i replace just the bushings or should i replace the whole arm with new ball joints and tie rods??? i found some with and without tie rods for a pretty decent price, under 200.00. my tech wanted 400.00 for just the contolr arm with the ball joints. and, how long can i wait before i should do them?? thanks in advance o, the right side is clunking pretty loud on bumps as you can imagine from bushings being shot.

 

i just recently did LCAs, bushings, swaybar links/bushings, and it seems that i won't be satisfied until i get the inner/outer tie-rods done. I suggest that if you decide to do the LCAs, just get everything taken care of, otherwise you'll have to go back and do the rest

 

if you've never done bushings before, i would suggest you get a lca with the bushings already installed. they are a b****. as for replacing everything at one time like heynow suggested, that's a personal preference thing. if you're going to pay someone, it would be cheaper to do it all at once because of less labor charges. if you do it yourself and don't mind working on the car, just fix what needs to be done.

 

You should fix the p/s leak first in order to prevent the new bushings from going bad. Since your car is 12 y.o., you are better off replacing the whole control arm assembly w/ the ball joint and bushing. It woulnd't hurt to replace the tie rods, but they have nothing to do w/ the control arm. Make sure to do an alignment afterwards.

 

a lot of good information in this thread..........i would agree with doing the p/s leak first....our cars ALWAYS seem to leak from the pump, it doesnt bother me though, since mine isnt bad. mine does, my g/'fs does, my friend at work, his does. its like the lower radiator support problem for our cars.

anyway, after you fix that leak, get the whole lca assembly, its cheaper in the longrun because youll pay labor to have it pressed out. unless you bring the lca off the car to a shop to have them pressed out....orrrrrr you can try it all yourself. i did this on 1 of my 240s.

freeze the new bushing for like a day or so. take off the LCA. use a oxyacetelene torch (needs to be this, since i dont know of a equal or more powerful torch). burn out the bushing....take a dremel or another small rotary tool and cleanout the remaining bushing....take out the frozen new bushing...use a vise method to press it in with some grease to persuade it. VOILA!

oh and any other circumstance i would recommend a new LCA. i was pressing poly LCA bushing in my 240 and they didnt sell it as an assembly. the whole process i said is time consuming.

 

nope, not gonna do anything right now, just gonna pray it holds together until september. i got taxes on my buisness, regular bills and i gotta eat. and friggin gas is killin me too, friggin uselees congress and george bush.

 

I have had the exact situation for years now. I changed the LCA but haven't done the PS leak fix yet. I guess I bought some time.

So, from your last post, you're not doing anything about, and so this thread is now useless to you?

 

no, not useless, just don't have my ******* tax refund yet. once again, uncle sam stickin it to me and makin me wait forever. i only need 500.00 to do the lca's with ball joints, and i would like to do the sway bar links too but that's a little more than i can swing at this point.

 

Dam labor must be real high up there .You can get both lca's & sway bar links for under $225 If you were local I would hook you up on a sat morning.