Upper control arm bolts?

I am just thinking, if I was to install upside down, I would use double nuts and some loctite.

 

I ended up ordering a spare, cutting the bolt and installing in reverse and used blue loctite.

 

I watched the Youtube guys taking pliers to their fenderwells to remove this bolt, and just figured this couldn't be right. I shelled out the $20 for a couple days' access to the Toyota Factory Service Manual for the truck to see how it's supposed to be done. Here's what it sez (see attached image):

The factory manual references a "Type A" and a "Type B" configuration for the upper control arm through bolt. Type A has the bolt head on the forward ("uphill") side, as seems to pertain to almost everyone's OE configuration on this thread (mine too). Removal instructions for "Type A" say (1) Remove the nut and washer. (2) Cut the bolt and remove the bolt and washer. (3) Remove the front suspension upper arm. No bending of sheet metal -just cut the dang bolt and pull it out -EZ. The "Type B" factory bolt configuration shows the bolt head on the "downhill" side with the nut at the top (like they should all have been installed, IMO). Instructions for removal of "Type B" are: (1) Remove the bolt, 2 washers and nut. (2) Remove the front suspension upper arm. Duh. The drawings in the manual accompanying these instructions differ ONLY in the direction of the bolt. Nut and washer configurations are identical otherwise.

Clearly, Toyota has sometimes installed this bolt with the bolt head on the downhill side (and why not always remains a mystery). As other have indicted, there's essentially no reason to not install the bolt in this direction. If the nut comes loose (from improper torquing, since otherwise it's not coming loose anytime) you'd very likely "notice" as the bolt clears the forward control arm bushing, long before it falls out completely. No bueno either way -so make sure you torque the nut as you reinstall. No reason not to install with loctite on the nut, either. Should be no need to double-nut. As for the concern with the bolt sliding out under gravity: the point is to get it correctly tightened in the first place. Connecting rod and main bearing bolt heads are on the low end of the assembly, and they don't fall out.

 

Great job! Good info. I did exactly that on mine and have had no issues for 20k miles so far.

 

Yup buy new factory bolts cut the heads off the old ones slide them out backwards shove the new ones in from the rear (that's what she said) & DONE

The left is a little tight & the right falls into place, mine took 1 hour to install both upper arms

 

just wanted to note what i did to solve this.. I didn't want to wait for a new bolt, so I just took a dremmel, and cut off the flange right at the head of the bolt. I then had a buddy hammer on the end with a little bolt through the UCA, while I pried out the head a little past the fender well. Came out super easy after cutting that off, and will be installing it backwards.

 

So I cut the head off my bolt, I'm trying to slide it out backwards but I have these brake lines in the way.
How did you guys get past these lines? Should I try to unbolt them?

Edit: unbolted that bracket, but I can't get the bolt out due to even more brake lines...

 

You need to loosen up/remove the next brake line bracket bolt to give you more wiggle room should be further down from the one you removed and that should do the trick

 

Not seeing any more bolted brackets. There's one that's clipped above the exhaust piece that it follows out under the car but I can't get to it.
Any other ideas? I watched the TC video on YouTube, but I now realize they did 2nd gen and this is much more a pain in the ass than they showed it.

 

I see the problem. The bolt has to come out the other way. Or you have to cut it again. I took mine out without cutting the bolt. Yes you have to bend back the pinch weld with some vice grips. But once you do that your in the clear

 

I used channel locks to bend the initial fender lip out of the way then used an air hammer (after I removed the wiring harness and AC line clips) to make enough room to get the bolt out. I put it back the same orientation. Doing it again, I'd buy new nuts and bolts from Toyota, cut the old ones and replace from the downhill side.

 

I’m hoping to get my JBA’s installed over my Xmas vacation. I keep hearing conflicting stories. Some claiming it’s no big deal, while others are advising to simply cut the bolt, install new ones in the reverse direction, and save yourself the frustration. Not sure which route I should go.

I believe @JoeCOVA has now done numerous UCA installs. Maybe he’ll chime in with some updated tips from his experiences. Wish he lived closer to me. Lol.

Regardless, I can’t wait to get these beauties installed and regain some lost caster.

 

I was trying to get it out and install it backwards to avoid bending the fender lip significantly. However, even after cutting the bolt head, it was still too long to pull it out downwards, it would hit hard brake lines that I can't move. I could cut the bolt further, but that wouldn't solve the fact that I'll still need to do something about getting the new bolt back in.
So I'm wondering how the others in this thread installed their bolts backwards.

 

Biggest thing is using a set of channel locks and getting a good hold on the inner fender and not being afraid to give it a good pull.

The fender has a vertical lip that hangs down and most people just try to bend that which isn’t always enough, have to grab deeper and rotate it open. If you do it correctly it’s like one motion and then you just bend it back when done.

It would be so much easier to just show you if I could but if you do it right you can bend it back and never know the difference.

I used a long screw driver/pry bar to tap the bolt out with a hammer. The flange head makes it easy to tap it out.

Can’t remember which side but as you tap out the bolt the flange head will snug up to the inter fender within the engine bay and there is some small piping you have may have to work the bolt around. Wasn’t hard but something my to look for when they bolt is almost out.

This video shows it at around 7:00 minutes though I’d tray to grab a little higher if possible.

https://youtu.be/bbsTJgb6S_c

 

Thank you, so much, Joe. I can visualize what your saying about how to bend the inner fender and the other tips are very helpful as well. I appreciate your time and willingness to share your knowledge and experiences. Definitely looking forward to regaining a bit of caster.

 

Just FYI, if you're going to be working on a 3rd gen, there's significantly more bending than what that video shows. I followed that video for my install, then hit a wall when it came to removing the UCA bolt. Theeen I realized they're working on a 2nd gen, and things are a bit different.
I cut the bolt head off of mine to back it out as others have mentioned, but my truck has brake lines in the way, so that's a no go either. I'll have to get back to bending and hammering in the next couple days to install the new UCA and bolt.

 

Additionally, if your cab is misaligned like mine was, you wont be able to just bend the sheet metal out of the way and you WILL have to cut.

 

I used these pliers from Harbor freight to bend the seam and had plenty of room to pull the bolt out and then used them to bend the metal seam back, you can tell it's been messed with but it's not super obvious unless you know what you're looking at and for. Honestly took me a minute to make clearance for the bolt. I even bought new bolts in case I had to cut them but it was much much easier than what I had read online.

 

I tried this tool and vice grips, both did pretty much the same thing. My problem is that on my truck the bolt gets pushed against the sheet metal much further than anything you can bend. It's far beyond the lip of the fender that drops down. I haven't been able to make enough room yet. But you can see in the below picture where I started hammering away to make room for the bolt, there's a little over an inch more space where the sheet metal was too close. At this point, it's still getting stuck on a much thicker part of the metal, where it meets a perpendicular piece. I wasn't able to hammer it down today since I ran out of time and it stopped giving way. There's very little room to swing the hammer on my chisel.

I would do this if I had a tool that could grind part of the flange.. it would solve my issue without additional hammering. Trying to think of how I can do that cheaply since I'm unlikely to need the tool again.

 

Thank God I've done this about 40 times and I have it down so fast now. Feel bad for the first timers, not an easy task the first few times. I bend the apron with a huge set of pliers I bought on Amazon. Then I use a LONG pry bar on the head of the bolt, with a sledge hammer hitting the pry bar to slide the bolt out. This is after setting back wiring and such so the bolt can slide out.

I can also cut the head off and install a new bolt backwards. Easy when you remove the brake line brackets (12mm socket).