Suffered a major malfunction the other day, luckily only in a parking lot. Just took a look finally.....somehow the upper control arm on the front passenger side (to you guys anyway, here in Australia my car is RHD and it's the front driver side :grin: ) has come adrift....WTF? As you may be able to see.... the rearward bushing has vanished and the metal looks trashed....forward section has bushing still intact.... I'm a newbie to this stuff.... does the control arm just sit on the shaft I can see further back in the wheel arch... or have a couple of nuts come adrift?? I take it I am gonna new a new upper control arm and two bushings? Are these easy to find? Thanks for any advice.
Looks to me like the bushings were probably very worn before this. That metal doesn't wear through until the rubber is completely gone. Once the rubber is gone, there's nothing to hold the arm in place and it will move around until a time such as you discovered, it will slip off one end or the other. Did you hear popping and banging in the front when you turned or hit bumps/holes? I'm guessing you did but didn't know what it was. Are the bolts/nuts that should hold the big washer and bushing in missing?
Absolutely correct. For a couple of drives before this happened. I have learned a lot in the last few days, lemme tell you. There is nothing there. See these closeups of the control arm bushing holes I just took in the garage, after turning the arm 180deg on its ball joint to take them ... Rearward bushing hole.... Front bushing hole
EDITED UPDATE Most every other bit of the suspension was replaced by my friendly local shop 18 months ago......but the bushings may have looked ''OK'' at the time. Or maybe they did not notice. On closer inspection of the other side....and based on what you say, Greg.... it appears the shaft has internal threads at each end and a small bolt screws in at each end to go up against a large washer, which itself fits against the bushing....and that's how it all holds together. I'm now guessing this sequence of events: Worn bushing disintegrates....control arm rattling around.....causing shaft bolts to back out with driving vibes....control arm falls off.....and that's how I got here. That metal damage in the bushing holes was not, as I foolishly first thought, damage to the control arm, but the remains of the bushing. All knocked out now. New bushings are available from a US car shop 20 miles away...will pick up tomorrow. The only remaining issue is this....tie rod. Damaged? I am guessing this is NOT as it should be (the other up front is straight) and that it took too much weight when the control arm broke free.....so it must be replaced. Correct? Thanks.
Holy s*#'t. You were lucky that you were not on the Highway when this thing came apart. I DO need to pay more attention to the rattling noises.
You did get lucky! I'm not up on the bigger cars but I'd guess that tie rod end is bent. You should be able to look it up on a US parts site and see pictures or someone here that is familiar will chime in shortly.
Wow Dave! Glad it was only in a parking lot. I had a control arm fail on me while driving about 75MPH down the highway. -Bob C.
I used to see the end bolts come out regularly back in the day. It would cause the same results as your pictures.
Yikes!!!!:eek2: Glad to hear that this happened in a parking lot and not while driving down the road. Hopefully your front fender did not get jarred out of place with this happening as well. This afternoon after work i will get under my 68 Lesabre and take a few pics of the steering linkage for you as reference. That way Dave you can have some pics of what is straight and what looks a little bent. :TU:
Soon after i got my 67 wildcat I noticed the passenger side upper control arm had some play. Ended up being an end bolt that was so loose it was ready to fall out. I routinely check them now....
Ouch. That's just plain scary. Don't just look at what broke - look everything over before you get back behind the wheel. A little O.C.D. wouldn't be a bad thing in this instance. just sayin'... Joe
Thanks all. Just real keen now for confirmation that that tie rod end should be STRAIGHT. Also, does anyone know offhand the thread pitch for the shaft bolt that attached the arm to the shaft?
Hey Dave Got home and under my 68 before the sunlight went down. Just realized that i took the pics on the wrong side of the car:spank:. Either way, here are the photos that i took and im pretty sure that both tie rods are relatively straight. I will double check with that this evening when im off work.
I wanted to throw my 2cents at this topic. When i bought my Riv upper bushings where toast, so i bought Moogs. But to my surprise they weren't Moog they were Harris made in Mexico instead. They didn't last long, maybe 700 kilometers :3gears:.So i thought maybe i did something wrong or those bushings were junk. I went to AC Delco, guess what, again freakin Harris from sunny Mexicoo No:. I redid bushings again hoping that maybe this Harris is better:dollar:. Well it didn't either. So here is what i did: Left is original design and imho they are very bad design but cheap and since it was crap from factory you had to change them often and they earned mare cash. Right side is Delrin bind free bushings with stainless inner sleeves and with original outershell. They don't squeek like worn rubber or poly, they don't change shape and go out of alignment. Car starts to drive like it was meant to be. Factory Tuned Car but very poorly executed IMHO. Peace,
Good solution. I put tubular uppers and lowers on my 70 Stage 1 GS car and they are free floating and don't bind. Just grease them periodically and keep going.
