Many thanks once again to Wayne (cjd777) for his significant expertise in replacing my car's rear upper control arms today. The working space inside the wheel wells is too confined to be able to use air tools, so Wayne's massive collection of various-sized wrenches, sockets, crowbars, forks, universal joints, extensions, etc. etc. etc. once again saved the day....

We started on the right rear wheel and gradually learned that it is all about the angles and tension created by proper floor jack placement on the hub carrier. If you look at the entire rear hub carrier assembly, most of the weight is to the front of it so once you have the rear of the car up on jack stands, your best bet is to jack up the rear hub carrier at its point closest to the front of the car. By doing this we were able to manipulate the geometry enough with crowbars and forks and big screwdrivers to get the old rear upper control arms out and the new ones in. Be aware that most of the rear suspension binding takes place at the upper ball joint's bolt, so one person works the crowbar while the other person lines up the new ball joint bolt and carefully hammers it into the proper position. We also discovered that if we removed the single bolt holding the rear stabilizer link bushing onto the rear hub carrier, our ability to get the old upper ball joint bolt out and the new one in was greatly improved....

My car now has just over 104,000 miles on the odometer. Both of the original rear upper control arm ball joints were shot, and all four original bushings on the four rear upper control arm pivot bolts were also in very bad shape and therefore allowing some serious wallowing and contributing to my somewhat sporadic rear suspension noises. You cannot see just how worn out these specific areas are until you are holding the old rear upper control arms in your hands....

After we finished the job by early afternoon, Wayne, the lovely Christine, and I enjoyed yet another delicious lunch at the local BBQ eatery in Spencer. Great company, great food, and a great way to wind up the day. My 120-mile drive back home was wonderfully smooth and quiet...

Many thanks once again, Wayne! And please chime in here with any further tips that the folks here in the S-Type forum should be aware of in order to make this job go a bit smoother. I cannot emphasize enough that having two people to work the various angles and tools is definitely the way to go....

 

Congrats to you and Wayne! Man I wish I were able to join in the fun and also better yet, enjoy lunch with Christine at the BBQ.

About how long did the job take from start to finish? The write up makes it sound pretty quick.

 

Rick, I wish it was as easy as it sounded.
We did learn what not to do on the right side. The shock is not a part that needs any attention as the sway bar link should be left as is. In the way, yes, but don't get involved, as it took as much time to get all of this back together as doing the job.
Start by get the ABS sensor out with a 8 MM bolt and cut the tie off the upper A arm, then tie it to the brake line up in the wheel well. Put the small bolt back in, to keep from looking for it later.
The bolts on the arm bushings have a tension if the suspension is dropping, so jacking it near the top will allow the rear bolts to come out with little difficulty after the ball joint has been knocked out, leaving the nut on until the back is out. A 18 MM universal on a 10 inch extension will get to the rear inter bolt. The bolt head and nut are both 18 MM. I used a offset 3/4 inch just to hold the nut. My 18 MM open end would not fit the confined space, but the 3/4 is close enough to hold it. If you have a off set ring 18, lucky you.
Getting things back would seen like a simply reverse action, yeah, good luck with that.
Here is where the purest is going to go nuts. Get the rears in with a couple of turns on the nuts, you will notice the ball joint is almost in the right place. Set the jack head under the inside bolt of the brake caliber and jack it up pretty high and the bolt will get close enough to be inserted with small wacks of a heavy hammer. No way will it go home, so cut a nut in half that fits and put it in place. The locking nut will go on and start to turn the shaft and not far enough to get the 8 MM wrench on the bottom to stop that. Your experience my differ, I hope so
We did take the track adjustment rod out and that in itself is a bear to get back in place. Not that you can't completely take it out, just the adjustment would be hard to get back correctly, with out a re alignment. Here again not for the purest. The circular end of a crowbar against the frame and on the bottom of the caliber and it will line it up just fine. No harm no foul.
Rick, as far as time, the right side about 2 and half hours (learning) the left 45 minutes, which is about as fast as you could do it without some special tools.
Jon is a great assistant and any force required makes it a easy task for him.
All in all a fun day and great BBQ. No cuts on my hands, working on a Jag, a first, at 77 they bleed just looking at them.
Thanks for lunch Jon and Rick, we missed you.

Wayne

 

Thanks for filling in the nitty-gritty details, Wayne....

Other S-Type owners can learn a lot by paying close attention to everything Wayne stated above. They just need to make sure that they have all the necessary tools at hand before they decide to tackle this job. Getting to the rear-most control arm bushing pivot bolt and nut (especially on the drivers-side rear wheel) is a hell of a challenge even with the right tools, and then being able to work the tools all the way back at the proper angle where they need to be in order to effect removal and installation of the pivot bolt and nut takes some well-experienced manual dexterity. Wayne 100% made that happen - my monster hands had zero chance of getting to the right spot with the necessary wrench to hold the rear nut while unscrewing or screwing in the rear pivot bolt....

Ratchet wrenches are extremely helpful for this job, but there are a couple of nuts and bolts where you just do not have the necessary wrench handle travel room to get ratchet wrenches in there and be able to use them. Sufficient patience with the appropriate open-end box wrench solved that problem even though it takes awhile because you only have a couple inches of wrench handle travel room so you just have to take your time and settle for a quarter-inch or so turn at a time....

As Wayne pointed out, we definitely went to school on the first side we tackled (the passenger side). Positioning the floor jack in precisely the correct spots on the rear hub carriers is critical. It took us awhile to figure that out on the passenger side, but we used that newly-discovered experience once we moved over to the drivers side and knocked that out quickly and with much less suspension binding to deal with....

Since February 2017, Wayne and I have replaced both front upper control arms, both front tie-rod ends, both front anti-roll suspension links, both rear stabilizer links, and both rear upper control arms. All new parts came from either Welsh Enterprises or SNG Barratt Group. All total, about $710 worth of suspension parts. Time will tell, but I think my annoying, sporadic suspension noises have now all been cured. All four of my original shocks still seem to be fine so we opted not to replace them at this point. Again, time will tell....

 

Always do a map-study before you fly a new route: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...l-arms-186547/

Great job, guys! Glad it is all sweet, now, and BBQ was enjoyed all 'round! In retrospect....too late for either of us, now...but if I had it to do all over again, I'd replace all suspension gubbings at once as soon as one fails. I think the expense would be recouped by only needing one alignment after fitment and your daughter/wife not shredding expensive tires while out-of-state or you are not paying attention....