Control arm swap - with pics - 'project Orange roadkill'

[06T200]

Upon reviving our Orange LS I quickly noticed it had some major handling issues, variable alignment (depending on if braking, or if accelerating) and a host of odd 'clunking' noises up front. It had a noticeable pull to the left under normal driving, until the brakes were applied then it would pull hard to the right. So it was messed up, a quick check of the wheels and it was obvious it needed new ball joints, and bushings. New Dorman arms with the BJ's and bushings installed came to less than $60 with shipping.

What I found was well worn out bushings on the drivers side, so much the arm just slopped around in the rear bushing. The passengers side was redone at some point, but was installed incorrectly, the bolts were just more than hand tight! So the bushings looked ok, but the arm was moving around causing just as many problems.

This job took all of about 20 minutes to swap the arms following the GM tis document, so I really don't have any enlightening tips. What worked for me was lining up the rear bushing, and installing the rear bolt and nut, then lining up the front bushing bolt. I needed to raise the trans about 3/4" on the driver side to get the bolt out.

The car now handles and drives like new, very solid up front with no noises of any kind. The brake pads were new looking so I did not need to touch the brakes.

All in all this is a very easy job when swapping the whole arms, and takes a bunch less time as it's just remove and replace. I normally press my own bushings, but since these were so cheap, I just did the whole arms. The time saved is worth the extra few bucks.