How to Replace 2004 rear suspension control arm front arm; tank removal???

[BruceHinton]

Hi folks I have discovered some more "criminal engineering"; Re; the bolts that hold these arms on the inside ends. --Seems they have the bolt heads, rather than the nut toward the tank, therefor the bolt will not come out far enough to remove arm!

Is there enough flex in the tank to allow, or must I drop it?

Any lurking monsters waiting for me to drop tank? I've done a couple of other car tanks in the past. Hate it.

TIA if anyone has been into this, and can help.
Bruce

[SaukRapids]

I don't know, but here's a link to service manual. Note: My pdf reader may not be powerful enough, but I couldn't get it to find words (Ctrl + F).

http://www.grandprixforums.net/threa...d-helpful-info

[Fivefingerdeathpunch]

I think lowering the rear cradle a few inches is easier than removing the tank.

[Scottydoggs]

thats how ya do it, lower the rear frame. only way the bolts are coming out.

[rickisrad]

when I did my wbody store lateral arms I just removed the rear cradle. like said above you need to at least lower the cradle.

[BruceHinton]

I am very impressed, in a good way, that this place exists. I had about given up by searching for vid or clear instructions, but there seemed nothing for these control arms.

Now I find you guys with real word experience. At 66 yrs, I grew up in that real world.

As Yoda might say, "Grateful, am I".

[BruceHinton]

Rick,

This is a driveway job, so I guess I'll make some props to support cradle down far enough to replace arm, parts are to be in tomorrow. I am just now getting ready to go back under, (trailing link is out already for its replacement). Want to make sure I have enough of correct tools, I think I can loosen the bolt in place now. Only doing right rear.

Thanks again, all.

[Scottydoggs]

sounds like its on jack stands alreay, just put the jack under the body. loosen the bolts and lower the jack till the bolt clears. pretty sure you'll need to loosen the other side bolts too. so the whole back end needs to be in the air for this job.

[rickisrad]

If you have the car on jackstands you can use the jack to lower the cradle low enough to get the bolts out. I do all my work in the driveway, even when I worked as a tech.


*Scottydoggs beat me to it. ^ lol

[Scottydoggs]

you and i come from the same place growing up, library for a chilton manual, or you learned by taking the parts off in a junk yard,,,whats this ask for help crap and get a real reply these days all about lol

if we only had it this easy growing up. info just clicks away lol

[BruceHinton]

Had my Motors Manual hardbound books and rebuilt my first V-8 engine when 15. Was a 273 that a friend owned.

[Scottydoggs]

good times right? did the same crap. had dirt bikes mini bikes go carts and blew them all up, rebuild em. blew my first rod and hole in the block in a 5 hp brigs lol

and if you put a 5hp carb on a 3 hp engine, thats a real mod!!!! lol

from there cars were next, we were pulling out and rebuilding engines at 15 as well. best friend back then had a huge 6 car barn with a pit and a I beam with a block and tackle on it that rolled side to side. being old school, you moved the car back and forward.

[WarStryker13]

My first engine was a 1.5 hp briggs, at 8 years old. Then I rebuilt a computer the next week lol. Newer tech, same process.

And yes, I am 23.

[BruceHinton]

"OMG", (that is Millenial talk I think), you are barely out of diapers, compared to folks in my bracket!

But you found our old passion for things mechanical. As for the computer, I built one with a 1.6 MHz 8 bit CPU, (yes MHz not GHz), it had 16 Kb RAM, a cassette tape storage unit since floppies had not yet come, (and lately gone). Keyboard and mobo were bare in an attache case, printer was thermal.

Now my main machine is 4.6 GHz CPU RAM is 32 Gb. Eight CPU Cores and a bad GPU working hard folding proteins.

Bruce

Oh, I build very high performance computers for clients of my company who game, or have large data crunching needs.