Front suspension help (stuck)

Replacing the front shocks and springs on my 13, but I’ve found that the LCA won’t swivel down out of the way even after I’ve loosened the cam bolts and the two nuts on the lower ball joint bracket. Additionally, when attempting to remove the sway bar bolt, I found that the bolt would spin around in place. There is a spot to put an Allen key and loosen the bolt but it has since wallowed out. Anyone run into these problems?

 

1: If the 13 is the same as my 06, it has two bolts as opposed to nuts that go up into the knuckle from the LBJ bracket. Remove those instead of the single nut on the ball joint itself. Your issue may also be coming from seized or sticking LCA bushings so that they aren't releasing their torsional pressure,

2: It's a pretty common problem on sway bar links, my preferred method is to use a pair of thin jaw vice grips on the boot side and blast the nut off with an impact gun. Without those tools they can be quite tricky.

Good luck OP, hope this helps

 

Welcome to the club... I ended up having to cut off my sway bar end links and ended up removing the sway bar completely when I did mine a couple of weeks ago. How ever I didn't have to take the LCA loose. All I did was remove the nut for the ball joint on the upper control arm and free the knuckle from the UCA apply a little upward pressure on the upper control arm to get the top hat of the assembly to clear and pull it out. But cutting the end links was a real PITA. But removing the sway bar was not to difficult.

BTW on one side I was able to loosen the endlink enough to cut behind the nut on the other side I ended up having to cut on the end link side and then I took a grinder and carefully ground down until the bolt and nut could be removed.

 

Thanks guys, right now this is turning into some sort of disaster. From pretty much every single bolt being seized into place cause the previous owner lived in the north east. Wish I could just put it all back together and look at it another time but one of the bolts on the top hat sheared off just from hand loosening it. If my LCA bushings are seized it seems like I’m screwed for now. It doesn’t appear that it’s even necessary to take out my sway bar, is it just for extra clearance when putting in the new shock?

 

Maybe you're eligible for a free frame replacement. If so, let the dealer take care of it. All you need to do is find a 10mm diameter rust hole.

 

I tried to do mine with the sway bar in and could not get the clearance to remove the assembly. But you are doing it a little differently than I did as I didn't mess with either of the CA cams. So take that for what ever it is worth.

 

Went to the dealer last week to see if I could get one. They said they found “moderate rust” and the frame was in “good condition”. I swear you won’t find a car that’s this rusted and only 6 yrs old.

 

Now should I go through and try to shear the bolt out. Or can it be left (for the time being) in the position that it’s in. The sway bar end link isn’t loose per say, just spinning about. Gonna hit it with an impact to see if I can shock it out.

 

I tried to hit mine with an impact as well and it wasn't going anywhere. Which is why I resorted to cutting. I left mine like that and didn't have any issues as I put everything back together to go get dinner and see if the local parts store had replacements which they didn't. Mine where loose at that point but it didn't make any noise or anything and drove fine. I cut mine off ordered some new ones from Amazon I think and removed the sway bar I never installed the new ones or reinstalled the sway bar. As I have not been able to notice a difference in the handling of the truck with or with out it.

 

@Fish Taco 4x4 Where are you located?

 

SE North Carolina

 

Guess this might call for a sway bar delete...

 

Ahh okay. Check out the local BS/ comms threads and see if anyone is local to help you. I'd come help you were in New England

 

I support this statement.

 

So I’ve loosened both LCA cam bolts (that face outwards). Don’t need to touch the insides of these bolts correct? So if it doesn’t drop down after doing all of this that means I most likely have a seized bushing? Talk about a headache

 

Did you remove the two bolts holding the lca to the spindle?

 

Yes

 

Do you have a quick link to the way you installed your suspension? Pretty much every single method I’ve looked at involves dropped the LCA down. But if I can do it without having to mess with this POS LCA that’s stuck then half of my problems will be fixed for now.

 

You could disconnect the upper ball joint bolt to try to drop the suspension lower

May work....may not

 

Got the sway bar end links out with a vice grip and some persuasion. Still gotta find a way to finagle that thing out of there without smashing a cv boot or something. As far as the LCA goes, it seems like the bushing are shot and I’m gonna have to bite the bullet on that. A “2 hour job” looks like it’s gonna become a 3 day job