Hi all.

I have ( with the fantastic help from People here) just changed the coil spring isolators on my 97 Cherokee 2.5 TD sport.

I am also wanting to change the upper and lower arms as there is a bit of play. I have changed the lower arm on the drivers side but when I got to attempt the upper arm..well..the nuts are as tight as a nats chuff!! resulting in some rounding off of the nut on that side.

Question is..is this normal or is there a trick of the trade??..I jacked the drivers side up and the passenger side was up on a ramp so there was plenty of droop. there is very little room to swing the ratchet on the 15mm nut and it is SOLID! I moved it just with a breaker bar but there is no room to swing it!

Your help would be greatly appreciated

Mark

 

I can't remember the exact setup on the uppers, but can you cut the nut off, knock through and replace bolt?

Rob

 

Thanks for your reply

I can sort the nut no problem..either heat it or grolley it but, I am certain there must be an easier way to remove these upper arms..it really shouldn't be that tight. Just wondering if there is a trick of the trade with balancing the weight or something.

 

I find a 1m long 3/4" drive breaker bar shifts most things. Bushes can be a bit of a problem if the bolts have seized onto the metal sleeve.

I bought a factory service cd manual on the net for a couple of quid. Very informative.

Rob

 

also if you remove the front bolt first there wont be any extra tension on the top. Use lots of pb blaster. walmart has it. good luck

 

This is a total joke!..The nuts are welded solid. I ended up grinding the axle end bolt off from the upper arm..the chassis end is just not moving and there is very little room to get in there..I certainly wont get the grinder in.

I am thinking of drilling the bolt head off as access can be gained to the bolt head from the wheel arch. Question is..am I doing something wrong here and I have sourced some m10 high tensile bolts with nylock nuts..do you think these will be OK rather than spending £10 on each new bolt??

For the sake of getting 2 bolts out this is a bloody nightmare!!

 

Bump.

 

M10x1.50x85 Grade 10.9 minimum

 

Hi Thanks for the advice. I have sourced some M10x1.50x90 grade 12.4. The 5mm difference has been made up with washers both ends ( your views appreciated). I used my mates oxyacetolene torch to get the bolts out in the end. The front end is now really tight and great to drive!

Thanks for all your help guys.

point to note to anyone thinking of doing this job..it is not as easy as it looks! :-)..especially if your bolts have been there 14 years as mine had!!

 

I started working on my truck maybe 5 months ago. Tackled many jobs (including both uppers and lowers). OA torch (or the torch wrench as I call it), has made everyone of them easy.

Glad it worked out