Hi All, It’s now my turn to rebush the front control arms. My question is: does the outer drive shaft need loosening to remove the control arm at the very front as it looks real tight to push it upwards?

 

When I did my front control arms, I just had to remove/loosen the bolts. I did not have to do anything with the drive shaft. It is my understanding you are supposed to replace the bolts and nuts with new ones. Number 10 which is the pinch nut bolt can be an absolute nightmare if it is rusted in and I ended up having to drill mine out. It took 30 minutes to do the drivers side which I did first, and then hours and hours to get the passenger side pinch bolt out. I ended up having to drill the whole bolt out. The new bolt that superseded the earlier one is very slightly smaller so it supposed to come out easier.

 

Many thanks for your reply and diagram. So just to confirm, to install item no: 1. I need to break loose bolt no: 9?

 

Hello @Mars911 ,
Can you confirm if you did both the uppers and lowers, or just uppers ?

Hello @UKGT ,
Are you working on all 4 (upper and lower control arms) for each side ?
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As to you question as to the lower control arm #1, that comes out through the top (whereas # 21 comes out the bottom) and may have interference with the CV joint housing, I cannot confirm 100%, but it may be close, if you are doing both the uppers and the lowers, then I think it would be best to remove the axle bolt at the wheel hub for ease of working, and to prevent any damage to the CV joint itself, because if you leave the axle bolt in place and pull the upper control arms out and let the assembly hang outward, then the CV joint boot and the innards can extend to it's furthest extreme, and the ***** in the joint can become dislodged from their mounting place, and later you will have issues of clicking and ultimate failure, just as if you leave the uppers connected along with the axle bolt, and you pull the bottom of the assembly outward to remove the lower control arms, the same will happen to the CV joint.

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As the diagram that Mars911 posted shows, you will be removing nut # 9 and sliding out bolt # 10, it's best to spray the area with some PB Blaster or equivalent hours, if not the night before, to help loosen up the bolt, then back the nut #9 till just flush with the end of the bolt to hammer it loose, then use a drift pin and hammer after removing the nut to get it all the way out, while at certain times giving the (#10) bolt head some turns to back out.

Don't forget to install the control arms at the loaded position.





Bentley control arms, lower front looks tight.






My Audi A8L W12 mishap... 🤐
Swerved to miss a deer, went off the edge of the road, overextended the suspension, which in turn pulled the CV joint to it's extreme, all ***** fell out and joint split in two, which then the axle shaft tore the output shaft out of the transmission, luckily, I had all the parts.

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Snapped bolt #10, drilled and punched out,
upper control arms in the proper loaded position.












Johnny

 

Thank you Johnny, I am only replacing the lower arms. It is the front arm that shock absorber mounts to that pushes out in an upwards direction and hits the driveshaft. I’ve just ordered a 19mm Allen socket in readiness. That deer will never know the trouble she caused.