I'm changing out the upper control arm bushings. Simple, right? Of course the bolt is stuck in the subframe. No play, no spinning, nothing. I hit it with half a can of PB blaster, used the impact gun for like 5 minutes, and I partially threaded the nut on the other end and hit it with a small sledge for a while... Nothing.

I referred to reverend sam's video (which is awesome by the way, for anyone who doesn't do this regularly) but his bolts seemed to come right out.

Has anyone else run into this? All the forum threads I have searched deal with stuck lower control arm bolts, but I do not see many people complaining about the uppers. Any idea on what to try now?

 

You might try raising or lowering the suspension (see the bottle jack in the Rev. Sam video). It could just be binding due to pressure on the arm.

I did not have any trouble getting mine out, but had to fiddle with the bottle jack height to get them to go back in.

 

I had no issues with mine however I have seen threads where the bolt had to be cut to get it out. The bolt corrodes inside the bushing with the bushing metal sleeve.

 

But I disconnected the ball joint first; there should be no pressure on the arm.

 

I don't think the bolt is corroded to the bushings because it would probably at least have a little give. I think it is corroded to the subframe. I am afraid in that case that it will still be stuck in there if I cut it. Plus I can't seem to find the replacement bolt.

 

Happy 4th of july.

You live in NEW JERSEY, I LIVE IN OHIO = BAD FOR THIS TYPE OF WORK, DUE TO OUR SEASONS AND SALT ETC.


Your going to need a torch or cut the old out and get a new, this job can get ugly real fast, been there done that, the bolt can be the hardest part of the job.


I had on instance where I used a torch to destroy the arm and bolt,because I had no choice, rust sucks

take a look at a few things here ANOTHER MEMBER POSTED

http://s107.photobucket.com/user/PIL...re276.jpg.html

 

Now that's just plain ugly.....hope the OP has better luck. I had to cut off the lower Ball Joint and thought I had a bad time.

 

The worst one I've done took four days of alternate Release Oil / Heat / Hammering to remove. The inner sleeve of the bushing seizes to the Fulcrum Shaft and the shaft can also seize to the subframe.

You will almost certainly need a replacement Fulcrum Shaft if it's as bad as that.

P/N MJA1455AD

Approximately £37 in the UK. Forum sponsor S N G Barratt lists them at $56.27.

Graham

 

I recently had to replace the upper bushings on the passenger side of my cat.

It was a real pig of a job to remove for no obvious reason as there was no sign of corrosion on either the shaft or the subframe mounts.

It took a few days of penetrating fluid and a hammer before I had enough space towards the front of the car to get an old wrench that I had lying around to slide between the subframe mount and the head of the shaft. about 10 smacks on the wrench towards the front of the car with a 3lb club hammer and the shaft slid out looking like it had never been fitted.

 

I had to hammer mine out also. Big problem is when first starting to hammer, you have no leverage because of the wheel well. Mine would spin easily but not go in without force.

 

I too had problems getting the bolt out on the right side. The bolt was stuck in the steel pipe's in the bushings. Lucky for me, after some banging on the nut side, it started to move, and like mentioned above, after getting it far enough to get a box end over the bolt end, I was able to hammer it the rest of the way.
I know we don't change these every week, but if I was to do it again, I would soak the sucker down with penitrating oil every day for a week prior to an attempt to remove the bolt in hopes that some of the oil would get where it's needed. A word to the wise.........

Chuck

 

Okay, so I finally got fed up with the driver side and moved on to the passenger side... and it came out with no (and I repeat, NO) problem whatsoever. The bushings were absolutely demolished.

The driver side I still cannot budge. I had a great idea to modify a bit on my air hammer and go at it - nothing still. When I try to crank the bolt, I can see the aluminum subframe bending. This is not good. I noticed a few weeks ago that someone removed the front x-brace. Does this brace add support to the subframe? Maybe I am torquing the subframe because the brace is missing...

So I put it back together and I am going to drive around on it and see if that loosens it up. I hit it with PB blaster about 20 times over the course of 2 days, so maybe between that and jostling it by driving it may come loose.

HOWEVER, even if I get the bolt out, I noticed that all of the shims are gone. The passenger side had a large shim on each of the ends, plus two smaller shims on the one side. Anyone know where I can get these shims? From what I can tell, the little ones go in various places to adjust the alignment as well. So I guess I don't even know where they are supposed to go.

 

Hi Marty,

The shims are used to adjust the castor angle for each front wheel. There should be a total of two thick and two thin shims on each side, but they may be in any order and should be replaced exactly as removed. I'd take a close look as the shims may still be in place on the 'awkward' side. All is not lost if you can't find them, as there is a default arrangement that will be fine until you can get the alignment done. For LHD cars, the setting is:

LHS/driver's side - front: 2 thick and 1 thin. Rear: 1 thin
RHS/passenger side - front: 1 thin. Rear: 2 thick and 1 thin

The difference across the axle is to allow for road camber, I understand. This default setting is swapped across the axle for RHD vehicles.

Jaguar part numbers for the shims are:

MJA 1467AA (Thick shim)
MJA 1467BA (Thin shim)

They look like large washers, except they're colour-coded (one is blue and the other red - can't remember which is which) and they are also around $4 each! I understand that the fulcrum bolt is about $50. Boy, for a set bolt and washers that is going some... I'm definitely in the wrong business

When I finally got around to fitting the upper bushes on mine this year (looked at the invoice and I'd bought them in 2005) it was very straightforward, but we don't have salted roads here. Other have said that getting the shims in place was difficult, but I didn't have any issues sliding them in place while pushing the pin through, although I did use OEM bushings. On the basis that it's likely to be me doing the job again next time, I used lots of the bomb-proof blue marine grease on both the bushes and the bolt to make sure there won't be any future seizures. May be something to add the the two year service - knock out the pins, regrease and refit...

Good luck, I'm sure that the stuck bolt will eventually surrender. Given the dissimilar metals I would expect heat in moderation will be your friend in conjunction with you favourite big hammer. Hopefully you won't have to resort, as others have, to breaking the wishbone and cutting the head off the bolt.

Another bit of poor design IMHO. Jaguar could have split the upper wishbone in a similar manner to the lower. Wouldn't have added much unsprung weight or cost

I've no doubt that a car designed by me would be nice and easy to maintain: just unaffordable...
M

 

Hmm. I may be missing shims on the "good side" as well. I only found 2 shims on the good side. There were also 4 washers that (let me see if I can describe this without taking the car apart agian) protrude inward toward the center, I guess, to make contact with the metal of the bushings while not crushing the rubber around it. From what you describe, these are not shims, but they also did not come with the new bushings. These are definitely missing on the "bad side". I haven't gotten it apart yet, but I can tell the bolt and nut are right up against the metal of the bushings themselves. Are these things additional, or are they replacements for the shims?

 

So I'm trying to figure out now exactly how many of each spacer I am missing, and from all of the help on this thread I have determined that there are four per side, two thin and two thick. I see the parts on SNG Barratt, so I should be able to get them.

I just want to verify that these spacers are NOT the stepped type washer I mentioned in my previous post. Sam mentions these "cone shaped" washers, as he puts it, at the 1:40 mark of his video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBHALcuwi3Y . But he only mentions them once, and I only see them on the outsides of the control arm. I have four on the "good side" and none on the "bad side". How many are supposed to be on each side, and does anyone have a part number for them?

 

I did a small video on you tube today on this long bolt on the wish bone and the bushes and washers ,, hope it helps ,,,,look under my name louismacrides1 and jaguar xk8 upper wishbone

 

Here's the link:

 

See attached for a photo of my setup, I'm working on this today so it was a good time to get this for you. This is my right side, as you can see I have one thick washer [blue] on the rear, one thick [blue] and two thin [red] on the front. On the left side I had one thin washer on the rear and two thick, one thin on the front. The "cone" shaped washers go on each side of the bushings as you suggested with the "cone" part against the bushing washers. The shims go between the "cone" shaped washers and the frame on each side.


After I get everything back together I'll take the car to an alinement shop to check and adjust as needed.
Hope this helps and good luck.

 

hello I also did another video showing how I pressed bushings into wishbone

 

Wow the bushing in your picture looks well mashed

The four washers you describe are indeed 'cup shaped', and sit immediately against each bushing face with the centre depression facing the bush. There are, therefore, four of them on each axle and they are in addition to the shims. The EPG describes them simply as 'washers', and gives a part number CAC3533. You are correct that they do NOT come with the bushings.

Be guided by the pics and video as these give an excellent indication of what and how everything fits together.

I used the blue marine grease on the rubber as well to ease assembly into the wishbone. JTIS suggests using 'a suitable lubricant', and this stuff doesn't attack rubber.

I only found three shims on one side when I did the job. I'm almost certain I didn't lose one when I was taking things apart (and that it was a first-time repair) and was going to rebuild as found but I didn't fancy the compression stress that would place on the wishbone, so I added a new shim to replace the 'missing' one.

HTH,
Mike