Replacing front upper suspension arms

[Tomtit]

I have just replaced the front upper suspension arms due to wear in the balljoints. Here are a few tips for anyone about to do this job:-

1. The shock absorber and coil spring have to be removed. The bottom securing nut will be TIGHT. I needed a 3ft breaker bar to move it. It has to be torqued to 157 Nm when being refitted.

2. Before I could remove the above nut I had to stop the bolt turning with the nut. There is not much access to the bolt head. Disconnecting the anti roll bar drop link allowed me to get a socket and 2ft breaker bar on the bolt head. This held the bolt still whilst I undid the nut with the 3ft bar and socket.

3. When fitting the first new suspension arm I had difficulty lining up the 2 fixing bolts. They would only go in so far. I then realised that the bolts do not go in horizontally; they are at a slight angle, but you can't see that with the arm in place. When removing the second arm I laid the 2 bolts on the floor at the correct angles, to show what I was aiming for. I knocked the arms to the approximate correct position then used a screwdriver through the holes to wiggle the arm slightly until the arm was in the correct position for the bolts to go in. It was trial and error with a few minor tweaks needed before everything was correctly lined up.

These points are probably obvious to a trained mechanic (which I am not) but they might help others who may tackle this job.