So I'm getting ready to start putting my front end back together and I forgot which upper control arm came off of which side. So I was wondering if they are side-specific or not because I didn't think to mark them before I took them off.
One of the bushings on each side has a lock ring on it, that goes towards the rear. Pretty sure the arms themselves are identical stampings.
Okay I'll have to look at the bushings when I get off work today and see which side has the lock ring on it. Thank you for the info Ludworks.
No worries. You made want to just do a real quick measure and make sure the spring perch isn't slightly offset or something. I'm like 95% sure they're identical but I could be mistaken.
So I ran into an interesting snag when trying to install my control arms back on the car. It appears that the new Moog bushings that I have are about a millimeter and a half longer then the old bushings were, which means that since there are two of them in the upper control arm that's a total of around 3 millimeters more material then what came out. This unfortunately means they're now bigger than the opening they're supposed to go into. So now my dilemma is do I want to take and file down the ends of the sleeves to make them fit (and then of course have to add the dimples back) or do I just lube them up and hammer them home so to speak.
I also had the same issue when I replaced my upper control arm bushings about 1 month ago. I just took my grinder with a flap disc and took the bushing down to size. The new bushings are working great.
Okay then that's what I'll probably do although I might just use a hand file instead of a flap disc because I have a habit of getting myself with spinning things.
Consider spreading the mount points. With some threaded rod and two nuts you can open up the sheet metal a small amount. When you tighten the control arm bolts it'll squeeze in again.
I already ground them down to make them fit, before all of this I tried using a dead blow to knock them in and it was digging into the metal and gouging it severely on the part that is between the two bushings.
Well as long as you got them to fit that's all that matters.