Hello,

I just changed my driver side lower control arm. The original control arm had a completely worn out bushing (the one closest to the rear).
Now, the car pulls hard to the right and keeping the front wheels straight translates into a steering wheel turned about 10° to the right.

Is there anything I could have done wrong that could cause the car pulling to the right?
If I switched the front and rear camber bolts on the control arm (I am using the original ones and my understanding is that they don't do any camber adjustment anyway), is that an issue?

I know for a fact I screwed up and tightened the bolts with the wheel up. I am getting the car on the jack tonight to do it properly: loose the bolts, drop the car on the wheel, then tighten with a torque wrench.

Aside form the above, all I can think of is that the alignment was previously made with the bushing already worn out, and putting a new control arm in changed the whole alignment...

Any thoughts?

Alex

PS: I do not want to take it to an alignment shop yet, as I know for a fact that the center link needs to be changed also and is most probably bad enough that no shop will do an alignment on this car.

 

What's a center link? When you changed the bushing it caused the toe-in to change; your left and right wheels no longer have the same toe and camber.
The bolts that go through the bushings, do they have an enlarged oblong shape at the head of the bolt that fits into the oblong shaped hole in the frame, or do they have a grove in the threaded portion of the bolt? The bolt with a shank that is oblong shaped and fits into a similar hole in the frame is used direct from the factory.

 

The two bolts I have have the oblong shape at the head that fits in the frame (ie. factory). Is it okay if I switched the front and rear ones?
What you are saying about the bushing changing the toe and camber makes sense to me. It's confusing that I read several times that changing a control arm will not affect alignment....
Since camber is not adjustable (factory bolts), only the toe in/out is. How could that change with a new control arm?

Center link is what connects the power steering to the wheels:

 

What you are calling the center link is also the toe adjustment. That is adjusted at the outer ends where it connects to the knuckle. When you changed out the lower control arm the new bushings were stiffer than the old and that pushed out at the bottom the knuckle, thus changing your camber and because you only changed one side it changed the toe on that side also while leaving the relationship to the steering knuckle on the other side of the car unchanged. Basically, you have one side of your set up different than the other; thus the car pulls to the right. You may think it should all be back to "normal" because the new control arm has new bushings, but that has changed from what your alignment was set at and thus the two side of your car are now different in it's alignment.

The outer end of the center link, the tie rods and ball joints can be bought separately.

 

Makes perfect sense. If the pulling is caused by the difference of camber between wheels rather than the toe in/out, then the only solution is changing the right lower control arm too? Assuming I do not want to install camber bolts.

As for the tie rods etc, I will need the entire center link as shown in the pciture, because the shot ball joint is the one in the inner side, cssoe to where the steering damper attaches. This part does not come off, you have to change the whole thing.

 

[QUOTE=Aside form the above, all I can think of is that the alignment was previously made with the bushing already worn out, and putting a new control arm in changed the whole alignment...[/QUOTE]

That's about right.
Switching the bolts front to rear I doubt made any difference if you may have done that while installing the new control arm.

I wouldn't think you need to change both lower control arms; repair the center link then get an alignment.

 

Thanks for the help!
I will put the old control arm back on so I can drive the car until I receive a new right control arm and find the time to change it.

 

I edited the post above # 6 to complete your answer. I would't get another control arm until the center link is repaired.

 

Gotcha.
First thing first: I will drop the right control arm and inspect the bushings. Seeing how the left one was damaged, it could be that the right one is the same. That would answer the question of changing it or not...
Car is 97K and as far as I know none of the suspension not steering parts has ever been changed!

 

I have close to 140,000 miles on mine. I changed the steering damper at about 80,000 and bit past that I went to eccentric bolts on the lower control arm as I wanted to get better tire wear. The insides of my tires would be down to the belt material yet the outside had 3/32 deep tread. The bushings, ball joints are all original. When I changed to eccentric bolts reducing negative camber my toe changed considerable. I could see the difference just looking at the car from the front, so I just eye balled it, adjusted it in my garage, to get back to a more straight angle, then drove it to an alignment shop.
I have the rear carrier frame and the entire rear axle off my car right now. None of those original bushings are bad. The lower control arm is soft, but I think it is designed that way. I am now lowering the car and changing our the sway bars.

 

Mine has 97k, way less than yours, yet here is what the left side lower control arm bushing looked like:


The car is an 05 and spent it's entire life in South Florida. I guess the constant heat took a toll on the rubber.
Out of curiosity, what year is yours and what state has it spent most of its life in?

 

Mine is a 2005, It was near Atlanta for it's first 5 years. I bought it in 2010 and live in rural southeast AL. I live on a dirt road about 1/2 mile to the pavement and have been to several CAA and fall Dragon get together.
I see no rust on your bushing, which is nice to see on a 15 year old car. I would suspect there was a manufacturing defect that quality control failed to reject, or that specific bushing got a good soaking of some kind of solvent that you picked up off the road and caused the rubber deterioration. Bright side; Your problem is much easier to deal with than many others on the car. Hope you get the center link and steering issue corrected soon.

 

Could be.
Agreed, none of this is rocket science. I'd rather have ten suspension/steering issues than one SKREEM/RCM/BCM/PITA/SOB/OMFG etc. issue :-D

 

Did you recently have an oil change at a dealership or those oil change places? The damage to that bushing looked like the time I took my ford to a dealership for a free oil change, and they sprayed something on both sides at the lower ball joints and it rotted away the rubber requiring me to change both lower arms with ball joints. Just saying...

.

 

I have only had the car for the past two years and did all the oil changes myself. From the Carfax report, previous ones were done by
local shops.
Interesting thought, but you would think there would be some oil stains on the arm, and there doesn't seem to be.

I have zero experience in how bushings age. When I looked at this one, I just figured this was normal after 15 years spent in a hot tropical climate, I wasn't exactly surprised.
What did surprise me though, is that the other bushing on that same arm looked quite good. Although they are not the same thickness/construction, I would have expected both to be worn out the same.
What will be interesting will be to drop the control arm on the passenger side and look at the rear bushing. If it is in a much better shape, then yes, the driver side bushing that I posted a picture of was either defective from the start, or sprayed with an agent it did not like.

What's funny is that after all this, I still have that cracking noise coming from the driver side suspension when turning the wheels all the way...

 

I do not think that playing around with these parts is too smart, even if you can get the steering to feel correct something may still be misaligned and cause excessive wear on the tires which may end up costing you more than a correct fix and alignment by experts.

 

I intend to get the alignment done at the shop once I have replaced the faulty supension part(s).
I did not feel like I was undertaking a crazy task by changing a control arm or checking toe links etc. I could be wrong.

 

Well, I dropped the right lower control arm and sure enough, one of the bushing is in as bad shape as the left was... So yeah, everything you previously said about the alignment being off because the left side is now stiffer than the right sounds very likely.
I have just ordered a right lower control arm, a pair of ball joints and a center link. Changing the center link sounds like a shitty job (there are some videos out there).
Here are some pics of the right side:

 

Changing the center link shouldn't be too bad if you do it while both control arms are off. Use a ball joint separator that you screw on a lever which pops the joint apart, vice a tuning fork as it will be easier on the car. Hopefully it will fit in the space you have to work with when the control arms are down. Also be advised there is locktite on the steering damper screws so it is much easier if you put a propane torch to the screw head just before you loosen. You may as well change the damper while you are there.
After you get it all together, put the steering wheel center and from the front of the car look at both front wheels. Do they look parallel? It isn't hard to see the difference. Adjust it so it at least looks good, then straight to an alignment shop. Good Luck.

 

Well, changed everything (lower control arms, ball joints, center link), got an alignment at the shop, and boy am I happy, straight as an arrow, corners well... Did not even need the camber kit.
No idea how the car is supposed to handle when it is new, since I've had it for only two years, all I can tell is that is is better than it ever was since I've had it.
But of course the cracking noise is still there, so although all of this was needed and it wasn't a waste of time, I am kind of back to square one