PatHenry

Hello everyone,

I'm going to be cutting some of the lower control arm bolts out so I can replace the control arms - are there any tips/tricks/advice that I may not be aware of before I start into this?

Full Details: I bought new lower control arms to replace mine as the bushings are quite questionable. I attempted to remove the old ones and was able to get one bolt on the drivers side out and I was able to get the nut off the other bolt. On the passenger side, I couldn't even get the nuts off despite a generous application of heat.
Looking at the drivers side, it was clear that the bolt had rusted into the sleeve (as had occurred on the leaf springs which also needed to be cut out in order to replace) and a bit of research confirmed that this is a pretty common occurrence. The general consensus was that I could spend hours of frustration with PB Blaster and hammering, or I could just cut the old bolts off and save a ton of time.

Therefore I put the old hardware back together and ordered new Mopar bolts so I could cut the old bolts as necessary and be prepared to install the new arms.

It appears that there is a bit of room between the frame mount and the bushing (the rubber is kind of squeezed out a bit) that I could fit a sawz-all up in there. So I was thinking to ruin a few sawz-all blades to cut through the rubber and the bolt on each side of the stuck bolt to get the old arms out.

dave1123

Just get some Demolition blades. They are bimetal and last longer. I've cut angle iron with them.

tinytrax78

cut em , use a quality sawzall blade like lennox or morse say away from dewilt or Milwaukee even tho they make decent tools their sawzall blades suck

dave1123

Oh Yeah! Morse makes excellent quality industrial cutting tools for a long time.

PatHenry

Where can I find the Morse blades? I bought a couple of lennox blades and at least one demolition blade.

OldTires

I used the Torch blades from Milwaukee, bought at HD. I had to cut both lowers on the frame side. I think I used 2 blades per bolt. So you will be cutting both sides of the bolt on either side of the bushing. Get safe, make sure everything is well supported, including the axle. Then get comfortable and get ready to spend a long time cutting. You lean the blade inward towards the bushings to make sure you don't cut the frame shackle. The sleeve cuts pretty quickly. But those bolts are tough. They chewed up the blades.

Canadiantech

I usually cutoff wheel the control arm near the bushing end, remove the rubber bushing then heat the sleeve vice grip it then spin the bolt out.

PatHenry

I'll have both the sawz-all and the angle grinder w/ cutoff wheel at my disposal, so it may come to that.

PatHenry

Those bolts are super beefy - considering they're the same ones used for the leaf springs.

Fortunately I was able to knock out the wheel bearing last night, so I'm only doing the lower control arms tomorrow and since its something I've never done before I'm assuming a full afternoon of time.

PatHenry

Just to follow up - this is done.

I ended up only having to fully cut out the driver's side frame end bolt and one side of the passenger axle side bolt. The driver's side was frozen in the bushing and the passenger side nut wouldn't give even with generous MAP torching, but once I cut it the bolt slid right out.
I went through 4 demolition blades due to the nasty rubber cutting and one "hard metal" blade.

I had a little trouble getting the passenger side to line up - it looks like a P.O. had replaced the clevis and used a bolt that was smaller than the M14x2.00 factory bolts. I coaxed the holes a bit with my "Big Daddy" screwdriver and had to tap the bolt through with a hammer to get it through. Then it was a bit of floor jack work to find the sweet-spot. It was a bit of a pain, but not too bad overall.

It definitely made a noticable difference in ride quality. I'm thinking I'll check into having my trusted tire shop press in some new upper bushings (mostly for convenience and to pacify my wife who thinks I spend too much time on the Jeep) and then replace the arms myself (since the shop won't take customer provided parts and I don't want to pay 3-4x my cost for the parts.)

​​​​​​​Thanks everyone!!

OldTires

Alright, getting it done. Congrats.