“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” - Robert Burns
"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" - Mike Tyson
I have a hard time visualizing in 3D, so when I have a complex task to do I plan a lot. I look at parts diagrams, I read procedures in as many books as I can find. I watch YouTube videos. I plan.
So when it was time to get after my control arm bushings and ball joints, I looked at time, cost, 'while i am there' stuff and 'stuff I don't want to mess with'. I made a list of parts I wanted to replace and any special tools I would need. And then I got started.
And then I got hit in the mouth when the ball joints would not come out.
The basic idea was I have limited time, so I wanted to just buy new control arms which come with new bushings and save me hours of work removing the old ones, cleaning up the arms, painting them and then fitting new bushings. While I was in there, I wanted to replace my ball joints which are 35 years old. A good shop will charge around $150/hr, the new Dansk control arms are around $230 or so each so if you add in time to remove-refit the bushings, the cost of the new bushings, and cleaning and painting the old control arms, new control arms are a bargain. They are also nicely made and fit perfectly I am happy to report.
If I left the brakes in one piece I wouldn't have to bleed the hydraulics and if I did not mess with the ride height or the upper strut mount I would not affect the alignment very much (see below). I'll still want to get a proper alignment, but driving there won't be an issue.
I soaked everything in penetrating oil the day before preparing for the next day. This was my first rodeo with this car and I really wanted it to go smoothly, even leaving room for the inevitable mistakes and surprises.
Parts
New Control Arms (made new by Dansk) - they make both the pre-74 style with the bracket for a through body sway bar and the 74-on for the sway bar on the control arms.
L (Drivers) 911-341-901-01 - JP Dansk 1640100270
R (Pass) 911-341-902-01 - JP Dansk 1640100280
New Ball Joints: (x2) 911-341-049-06-M69
New Crown Nut: (x2) 901-341-425-00-INT
New Washer (lock plate) for ball joint: (x2) 901-341-426-00-M260
New wedge pins, washers and locknuts (*always replace the wedge pin and nyloc nut says the manual)
Wedge Pin: 911-341-119-06
Washer: 900-089-006-02
Locknut: 999-084-019-02
New front sway bar bushings (x4) : 911-343-881-00-M136
Sway Bar Mount Clip: (x2): 911-343-775-00
New dust shield for the torsion bars: (x2) 901-341-475-00-M136
I was going to order new control arm & sway bar bolts but they were all special order and would take longer so I held off. The old ones were OK.
Tools:
Angle finder
Remove steering rack shield - 17mm socket, H8 hex key
19mm for the rear control arm mount bolt through the cross member
17mm for sides of protecter bar and front of control arm (with spacers beneath),
13mm for the bolt in the frunk (center of the protector bar)
12mm for the ride eight adjustment screw
Wedge Pin Nut: 13mm
Porsche factory tool Baum P280B - worth every penny when you are trying to apply 184 ft lbs of torque later on.
Pickle Fork - to force ball joint out of strut housing
Small sledge hammer
Dead blow hammer
Plastic hammer
Rubber sledge hammer
Big screw driver
Needle nose pliers (for cotter pin) and maybe a small screw driver too (cotter pin)
Ball joint removal tools. Percussive maintenance at its best.
Materials:
Red rubber grease - to help get sway bar into new bushings.
Bearing grease - exact type is not critical - this is just to coat the torsion bars to prevent rust. I bought a small tube of Molybdenum grease to grease up the torsion bar, and the tops of the ball joints. I also used it to help the control arms slide into the cross member, and on the ride height screw (to protect it)
The big picture
Here is the field of play, I grabbed this pic off of the internet. This particular car is a turbo (look at those big brakes!) that is getting nicely restored so you can see everything clearly. The set up is the same and it's easier to see the whole thing here than in my pics:
Basic steps: (jack car up and remove wheels, obviously)
Remove the bar that protects the AC condenser (two bolts underneath, 1 bolt inside the frunk, front and center)
Remove the protective shield over the steering and fuel pump - it has two of the sway bar mounts integrated with it.
Remove the nuts holding on the sway bar mounts
Remove the nut on the wedge pin at the bottom of the strut. This will need a few love taps with a hammer to come out. Hammer the threaded side. (facing the front of the car) so the pin comes out towards the rear.
I removed the castle nut on the bottom of the ball joint with a special tool.
I recorded the setting of the height adjustment screw on the torsion bar (which is inside the control arm)
I removed the bolts in the front of the control arm and then moved the the rear of it - just loosed the adjuster screw all the way out and then remove the adjuster cap.
You can now remove the control arm with the torsion bar in it.
The ball joint SHOULD come out with some taps of a hammer on a pickle fork. But it didn't. I got a blister on my thumb from hammering it. (and at some point I damaged the old control arm with the fork)
This is where, per the plan, I would start to re-assemble the new control arm and mount the new ball joint, reset the ride height and be done. Step 5 was my "first rodeo" mistake.
The issue appeared to be that the ball joint seized in place inside the bottom of the strut housing, and at so then I checked the passenger side. It looks like it has the same issue.
At this point I chose to soak the ball joints again in penetrating oil and try again the next day. Nothing had changed by the next day, I could hammer on the ball joint and it would not budge. My concerns now were the possibility of damage to the strut housing, and my limited time to prep the car before the next Auto-X.
While I did not want to open the hydraulics or remove the strut housing, I made the call to remove the strut housings. This would give me better leverage to remove the ball joints, to inspect for damage and then to re-assemble things where I have better leverage and room. (* I bought the new strut tower mounts and Bilstein inserts but didn't put them in at this time)
Easy peasey, right? Old one comes out, new one goes in. I'll be home in time for lunch.
Protective bar is out, shield is off. The sway bar is now only held on by the bushings in the control arms. I forgot where those thick spacers went and they are not in the Bentley manual; I did find them in the parts catalog in the air conditioning section:
From page 535 in the parts catalog. Bolt #11 is the one that comes through from the frunk. Those big spacers are #7 and that bracket is bolting into the frontmost bolt hole in the torsion bar cover.
The front ride height adjustment, accessible from the rear of the cross member. There is a bolt here as well which locates the rear of the control arm (to keep it from twisting.) The front of the torsion bar sits in a toothed recess at the front end of the control arm, and the rear of the bar protrudes into this cap which is toothed inside. The adjustment screw twists the bar to provide the spring pressure to support the front of the car. The manuals tell you to count the threads above the adjuster to get you back close to where you were before you started. Playing with the ride height will affect your toe and camber so you want to be close until you can get to an alignment shop. Also keep track of the adjust head position when the screw is no longer applying pressure. This is where you want to re-install it.
Here we have removed the nut for the wedge pin. We do this before disconnecting the control arm or the lower part of the ball joint because this supports the strut and makes it easier to remove. You can see here there is a healthy amount of rust in there. I used a small ball peen hammer to knock it out.
I used an impact wrench and a Peugot/Citroen ball joint tool to try and save money on removing the castle nut beneath the ball joint. The Peugot wrench fits ok (the teeth are a little small) and it costs between $13-$20. The Porsche factory tool is over $100. This was a partial success. The castle nuts came off easily but it was too hard to stabilize the wrench on the castle nut to torque the new one down. The factory tool actually surrounds the nut while locking into the grooves much better. Much more stable.
Here we are with the control arm out, the wedge pin removed and just the ball joint in the way of our progress. On any normal day you'd put the pickle fork where that rubber hood on top of the ball joint meets the strut housing and hit it a few times and be done. This was not one of those times. Another normal approach I have heard of is to leave the control arm in and lever against it to pop the ball joint out (while the bottom of the ball joint is still held in it). I wasn't able to budge it that way either*. I couldn't even rotate the shaft using vice grips and a hammer. I also tried hammering straight down on it using the pickle fork as well.
* I may have misunderstood what that person meant by lever against it? I was picturing a 2x4...
Regrouping
I sprayed the top of the ball joint with penetrating oil and slept on it. Feeling temporarily beaten, I resigned myself to ordering new strut inserts (which I need anyway), the correct factory ball joint removal wrench, and a new top strut mount. I was ready to pull the brakes apart and remove the strut housing but right before I began I had a thought - what if I could use the torsion bar to pull on the ball joint while I hammered? That could be >100lbs of force or more pulling down while I hammer. Hammering on, or levering off of the control arm made me concerned about damaging it. But this would be a natural approach. It's built to do this.
I jacked up the passenger side control arm (still mostly assembled and in place), put the castle nut back on the ball joint snugly and then jacked the hub up by the brake disk. This put tension on to the torsion bar and it would want to pull away from the ball joint which was no longer attached (just stuck) I hammered the pickle fork at the usual location and within 5 or 10 blows it moved significantly. You can hear it in the sound of the hits when it does. A few more shots and it was out. This was great news, I moved back to the driver's side and re-mounted the old control arm, again just snug, replaced the torsion bar and adjuster to get it under pressure and then got castle nut back on the bottom of ball joint. Jacked up the disk and hammered away. This was was still harder than the passenger side, but it came out!
Passenger side is out!
I checked the hole for damage and did not feel any pitting or sharp bits. It just had dirt & rust in it. I cleaned it out with shop towels and my finger, and then used the new ball joint to check the fit. I smeared grease on the end, and each time I tried to install it, it went a little further in. Each time I got to where it started getting stuck, I'd remove it and wipe off the dirty grease and start over. I dabbed a little blob of grease at the top of the hole too. Eventually I got the ball joint in far enough to install the wedge pin. I had already rotated it to roughly where the notch needed to be in the control arm (relative to the wedge pin notch in the shaft) so I was in good shape to raise the control arm and wiggle the ball joint a little to get it located properly. I put on the castle nut, just snug for now.
The old driver's side ball joint. Pretty rusty. The damage towards the lower half is all from hammering, vice grips and all the other ways we tried to pull it out. But you clearly see how rusted the top half was. Hopefully the grease on the new one will help protect it.
New ball joint and wedge pin installed on the driver's side. I removed the old control arm and prepared to install the new one. Make sure the cut side of the wedge pin goes against the cut in the ball joint. They go in from the rear, and should just tap in gently with a plastic hammer.
You can see the notch lined up where the wedge pin will go here, and also the notch that locks the ball joint into the control arm. They should both be pointed roughly the same way. I test fit them ahead of time so that I wouldn't have to try rotating them under the car later.
I jacked up the new control arm with a rubber block so I wouldn't mess up the new paint. I put the rear mount into the cross member (you may need to tap it with a rubber mallet) and loosely installed the 19mm bolt to hold it. This allowed me to get the control arm and ball joint lined up and install the castle nut. Then I greased up the torsion bar and installed it. The splines locate in the front of the control arm. I pushed a little too hard while locating it in the splines and popped off the front cover, but a few taps with a wooden dowel (don't want to hurt the torsion bar!) got it back in and I tapped the cover back on.
A little too much pressure on the torsion bar... we popped off the front cover.
A few love taps with a wooden dowel, some fresh grease and I put the cover back in place.
At the rear of the torsion bar it extends through the cross member. I put a new dust seal on (the foam surround) and then the adjuster cap and screw. These should be installed with the control arm at full droop. I made sure the inside of the cap was greased, and the screw should be lubricated as well to help protect it from rust. The torsion bar is marked with an "L" on the rear end, as well as painted yellow. (the right side one is blue) Make sure you don't mix them up. I am doing one side at a time to reduce my risk of this kind of thing. The cap goes on near the mid-point of its rotation; the screw won't go in if it is on a big angle. And it does not need to move very far.
Cap and screw are in and roughly where they were when I started, hopefully.
With the control arm all bolted up and the torsion bar set, it's time to torque it all down. First I did the wedge pin and control arm bolts (2 in front, one in back), and then I moved on to the castle nut. This is the big one.
Not a mis-print - the castle nut really needs 184 ft lbs of torque. Eat your Wheaties and make sure everything is well stabilized.
For the first few tugs you can keep the wrench on the nut, but as it gets tighter that gets progressively harder to do. I used the jack to stabilize the wrench on the nut while I pulled hard on it. Slow and steady wins the race. This is where the factory tool pays for itself - not only does it have the right size teeth to go into the nut, but it surrounds the nut to stay located (the teeth are inside) which keeps the wrench from sliding around and getting out of alignment with the nut.
Press in the lock washer (I used a big screw driver), & bend in a tab where it lines up with a notch and put the cotter pin through it. It's tight, but doable. The square mount keeps the washer from turning and the bent tab prevents the castle nut from backing out.
And now we're off to the finish off the other side. I am doing one side at a time so that I have a reference of how things "should be" in case I make mistakes. It's a good safety measure.
Once the other side is done, we'll check the ride height and fix it as needed and then get a proper alignment. I may have the alignment shop do the struts, because I need a break.
The brake lines up under the belly pan looked a little damp, but it didn't smell like brake fluid, probably just water, but we'll keep an eye on this. Years of driving a leaky Triumph taught me to learn the smells of all of the fluids. A silly thing that can save your life.
The new Dansk control arms don't have the ends at their final angles but I didn't see a logical difference between me twisting these in a vise or letting the car settle them in so I located the rear and then used a jack to press the front into the recess and bolt it up. I sprayed the bushings with WD40 but I am not sure it could penetrate at all. Best practice is to set the angles when you are installing the bushings.
I took the other measurements relative to the control arm as "level". (above)
Here is the angle on the rear mount
And the measurement on the front mount. This is on the factory installed bar I removed. Good ballpark numbers.
Old sway bar bushing vs new. The brackets only go one way so be sure the "big' side is towards the rear. The hex bolt won't go through the small side. Ask me how I know! They were in better condition than I'd expect after 35 years, but still pretty shot.
Getting the sway bar back in is a bit of a magic trick. I wound up using an approach I read on an Australian 911 group - I popped the control arm out (again) to give myself room to maneuver. If nothing else, I got really good at removing and re-fitting the control arm during this project. (!) The sway bar is wider on the ends so it won't fit easily with everything in place. I used red rubber grease to help get the bar through the bushings easily. It's pretty easy for the bar to push the bushing out of the control arm otherwise. Lithium grease and liquid dish soap are popular options as well. You don't want to use anything that will affect the rubber.
When in doubt, think about how the factory probably installed the thing you are wrestling with. The front suspension likely went in as a unit, struts, control arms, cross member, sway bar, etc. That being the case, it made some sense to loosen a control arm since the assembly would be out of the car normally and not located while being pieced together.
Two other popular approaches for re-installing the sway bar are:
Put one end in and the squeeze the bar to get the other end in. (FCP's approach) Somehow without dislodging the bushings. I couldn't budge the thing to where it needed to be for this. But if you lift, bro, it could work. I also tried using some woodworking clamps but the bar is on too much of an angle and they just slipped off. Perhaps a strap and a ratchet would make this easy? I didn't have one handy.
Pushing one end in past it's final location (farther through the bushing) is supposed to work also, although I was not able to get it to a good place this way either. Since it gets narrower towards the rear I can certainly see the logic there. This seems to be the Pelican Parts approach and a helpful PCA member on FB said he is able to do this install in 5 min using this approach. I will certainly try harder next time! 5 min would be a big improvement. My approach probably took 30 min.
Once you have the bar back into the control arms you are not quite out of the woods - the belly pan will not want to go back into place. There are straps that locate in the rear cross member and on a raised receiver in the floor pan. These straps contain both sway bar mount holes. There is a bit of pre-load on the bar that interferes with re-assembly. The smaller hex-head bolt goes int to middle, just put this on very loosely until the cover is in place. Put the cover on and put on the 2 nuts at the cross member. Then use a jack to push up on the sway bar next to the belly pan to allow you to get the hex-head bolts into the floor pan. I just found this much easier with the middle bolt very loose. Once the other 2 points are tightened up, then use a crescent wrench to tighten up the middle bolt. You may need to do some fine adjustment of the sway bar's position fore-aft. A rubber mallet is good for this.
Replace the road wheels and lower the car down. You can now measure your ride height and adjust it with the 11mm screw that comes through the cross member. You can do this with the car on the ground pretty easily. You should be in the ballpark if you counted your threads, and it's a trivial adjustment to make. You should have a 1 degree rake to the front of the car as measured on your door sill. The Q&D measurement is from the floor to the first "pretty" surface (fender) through the middle of the wheel; the front should measure 1/2" higher than the rear. "Euro" height is frequently stated as 25" in back and 25.5" in front. The real measurement is detailed in the manual but this is a good starting point. Go slow and alternate sides as you go since they will affect each other.
Your wheel alignment should still be in reasonable shape but you should get a real alignment with all of the new bushings and the new ball joints, things will probably change a little bit.
Addendum: Alignment effects
I had the car given a basic alignment after this work to tide me over until I can re-build the rear and then do a serious alignment. I thought it would be interesting to see expected vs actual here. I had planned this body of work off of the following assumptions:
Camber & caster are primarily controlled by the upper strut mount angle, which I wasn't going to move.
Toe is controlled primarily by the tie rod, which I was not going to touch.
The wildcard in all of that is ride height, which can affect both camber and toe... But I had before measurements I would adjust to. If that didn't change materially, I should be ok. So lets see how that played out: These are all the specs I have for the car - as it arrived when purchased in fall 2021, the basic alignment that was done (just toe) when I bought tires for it, (where it presumably was when I started this work on the control arms) and where it is now.
Column B is how the car was when it arrived
Column C is its initial alignment - I just asked them to get the toe in spec.
Column D is how it went into the shop last week after the front end work
Column E is how it is at the moment, just tiding it over until the new front strut inserts and mounts go in. Getting the height more in line and evening out the front camber made a surprisingly big difference in how the car feels in corners.
The headline I think is that the assumptions were not bad. I did slightly change the ride height (I evened it out L to R) and that may account for the changes in camber, I am not sure. But the caster didn't budge, and the toe barely changed.
We couldn't get the caster into spec just due to the body sealer on the old mount. This was as close as it would get. Not a big deal since the mounts are coming out the week of the 19th. I asked them to try for 6 deg there.
References:
FCP Euro Blog (great belly pan detail etc): https://blog.fcpeuro.com/replacing-sway-bar-bushings-end-links-classic-air-cooled-porsche-911
Porsche Forum (AU): https://porscheforum.com.au/topic/14778-911-sc-suspension-time-for-a-refresh/page/2/
Pelican Parts Article: https://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/101_Projects_Porsche_911/62-Sway_Bar_Bushings/62-Sway_Bar_Bushings.htm
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