Hey guys-

I spent a long time reading instructions and watching videos for a DIY for the front control arm bushings for my car (04 R53). After 2 failed attempts to do this job at home due to the lack of necessary tools and fear of ruining my ball joint boots, I finally was successful and wanted to share some tips to other people who might be having the issues I had.

The main problem I had was breaking loose the inner ball joints. I rented an OEM (that's the name of the brand) pickle fork and an OEM balljoint separator from Autozone. Neither worked at all on the inner ball joint. The pickle fork was A) too long and hit the subframe before putting pressure on the balljoint and B) Would totally destroy the balljoint boot anyway.

I'm sure that there's some proper way to remove them and that some experienced mechanic will call me an idiot for not knowing it, but for the life of me I couldn't find a single walkthrough that clearly showed how this was done. I was dead set on doing this WITHOUT dropping the subframe OR pulling the axle shafts. After some trial and error, I was able to get it done and could do it all again in probably 1/4 the time now that I figured out this trick.

Unfortunately I didn't take photos for the entire process, but I think that my instructions should be pretty simple to follow if you are mechanically inclined.

I would recommend watching videos on youtube or following a step-by-step DIY with detailed info about what tools you will need, but if you (like me) are stuck on the damn inner ball joints (or don't have the time or a friend to help you with dropping the subframe) this will help you.

Tools you will need to do the trick:

OEM Pickle Fork (Rent at Autozone for free!).
OEM Balljoint Separator (rent at Autozone for free!)
Mini sledge hammer

I followed these steps.

1) Jack up the car and put it on 4 jackstands

2) Remove the front wheels

3) Remove the big nut on the bottom of the inner balljoint (preferably with an air powered impact gun if you have one. Otherwise you will need a wrench and an Allen key.

4) Use the balljoint separator (not the fork) to disconnect the tie rod ball joints from the wheel hubs (do both sides). This is easy, follow the picture inside the box. Should be cake. Be careful not to damage the balljoint's rubber boots (slide it up with a flathead screwdriver to keep it out of the way). Once they're popped loose, move them out of the way.

5) Disconnect the sway bar end links where they connect to the sway bar on both sides of the car. To do this you need a 16mm wrench and an Allen key. This should be fairly obvious how to do. Once they are loose, use a zip-tie to keep the sway bar tilted up and out of the way. Tie it off on either side to anything that can hold the weight.

5a) on one side there may be a sensor for the auto-leveling headlights. Remove the bracket from the control arm using a 10mm wrench and disconnect the electrical connection that runs to the sensor box. Then move the sensor arm out of the way and be very careful not to break it!!!

NOTE: THIS IS THE TRICK!!! From here the instructions apply to both sides.

6) Use the 16mm wrench to loosen the 2 big bolts that hold the inner balljoint to the subframe. They are very tight, but if you have a big wrench or are strong they're really not that tight. I have an 8" wrench and broke them all loose with one hand. Do not remove the bolts (one side is directly under the axle shaft and you can't remove it). Just turn the bolts that hold the balljoint bracket to the subframe counter-clockwise about 6-7 times so that both sides can lift about 1/2-3/4". You'll have to play with this to get it just right... but you'll figure it out.

7) Lift up with one hand on the control arm directly under the inner ball joint. This should make the ball joint bracket itself lift up until it hits the heads of the bolts. This creates a nice gap where you can wedge the pickle fork in BELOW the balljoint bracket and ABOVE the subframe. Stick the pickle fork in SIDEWAYS on the side of the balljoint. Depending on which side of the car you are doing, it should be on the side facing the REAR of the car (IE the passenger side you stick it to the left of the balljoint, on the driver side, you stick it to the right). Use a small flathead screwdriver to keep the boot out of the way when you are sticking in the pickle fork - This way it won't get damaged!





8) Use a 16mm wrench and start tightening the bolt on the same side where you stuck the pickle fork. Turn the bolt until it is tight, but not super tight. Just make sure it's putting a lot of pressure on the pickle fork. You shouldn't be able to move the pickle fork by hand.



9) Bang the control arm from the top with the mini sledge hammer. For me it took only 3-5 hits to pop the balljoint loose.



10) Remove the 2 13mm bolts that connect the outer balljoint to the wheel hub. Tap it with a hammer and it will fall out.

11) Tah-Dah!! Now you can pull the control arms out.

Note: I used the saws-all method to remove the old bushings. Piece of cake!! I used a 6" dewalt metal blade and it cut through the old bushing housing like butter. In about 15 seconds I was able to remove each bushing by cutting a single slot in the bushing. Watch youtube videos on this if you are confused. It's super easy. Once you cut through it basically just falls out. Then I pressed in the powerflex poly bushings (WOW THESE ARE AMAZING, YOU MUST BUY THEM IF YOU ARE REPLACING YOUR FCABS!!!) using a 1/2" threaded rod and an assortment of washers. I basically bought like 10 of every size washer they had at lowes and then got creative making a device that would pull the bushing into the housing. They also make bushing tools that will do this, but I already had the rod/washers from a subframe bushing job I did on my E46 last year. If you choose to do it using the threaded rod method, you have to get creative with this. Pushing the powerflex bushings through straight was VERY difficult... so have a good plan for this if you start this job!!

From here you can follow another walkthrough on finishing this job.

Hopefully this helps somebody! Happy Motoring!!

-Dave

 

yeah I did this same method, granted my old bushings put up a decent fight on the way out but whole job took less than 3 hours with taking our time and drinking beer

 

That's awesome! When I need new bushings, if I try it myself this will definitely be the method I try. Could you unbolt the brackets for the control arm bushings? and then use pre-pressed bushing? or i the subrame in the way of one of the bolts?

 

i used the tool they sell on ebay, made it very very easy, I've seen them for as low as 40 $ now from the UK

 

The bushings were pretty easy, and I think I know which tool you're talking about. I was going to buy this but decided to attempt using my contraption, since I didn't want to pay for international shipping or wait. For some stupid reason these aren't available anywhere in the US... except for some clones that cost $150+ for no apparent reason.

For anyone who is wondering about what the best tool is for removing/reinstalling the bushings, the best deal seems to be the Bergen tool. You can buy it on eBay from the UK. I'm sure it would make things easier, so if you can wait, I'd just get it.

Here is the info for that tool:

Bergen BMW Mini Front Control Arm Bush Tool (Part# 6140)

Also, for reference, the tools I used are:

Pickle Fork - OEM Part# 25202 - Rented at my local Autozone
Balljoint Separator - OEM Part# 27308 - Rented at my local Autozone

And the video I watched for the saws-all install method was
...But of course he already removed the control arms when he starts the video, so he was no help when it came to breaking the ball joints.

The real reason I made this thread was to help people with the inner ball joints. Because of the awkward shape and location, none of the conventional methods were working for me for removing it (especially without destroying the boot). Once I figured it out on one side (which took almost an hour), it took me about 5 minutes to pop the other side.

-Dave

 

No, you can't unbolt the bracket without dropping the subframe. It's easier to just remove the old bushing and replace it in place. If you get the right tool you can do this easily with everything in place, and if you use the sawsall method (see the video above) and install powerflex bushings, it's pretty easy to do in place.

 

 

I saw this video and attempted to use a pickle fork to break the inner ball joints loose, but after trying with 3 different size forks i could not break mine loose. Maybe mine were just rusted in place or maybe the car in the video had already recently had them popped loose so they weren't as tight as mine... but mine absolutely did not want to let go.

Also I was concerned about destroying the balljoints or the boots because I did not want to replace them... since that would require I remove my axle shafts to do so (and another $100 gone on parts I didn't need).

It may have helped if he gave more info about the specific tool he was using, or showed a better view of specifically what he was doing (and it would prove that he wasn't actually just destroying the boot, as it's my understanding that it's practically impossible to use a pickle fork without destroying the boot)... but I found the video to be too lacking in detail to be very useful.

Believe me, after watching that video I was full of confidence and thought it would be a piece of cake. In reality, that's not at all how things went down!!

-Dave

 

That's great that worked as it is a good approach to try not to damage the ball joints. But most the time we see people damage them as they are so tight.
I've tried 50 different ways over the last 12yrs and found just dropping the subframe in the rear the easiest. Still takes work to get the bolts out, but once out I just put the brackets in the press and push the old bushings out. Then of course we only install the powerflex bushings going back.

 

I'm going to be doing this myself in a couple of weeks. Have the car ready to do it today but USPS decide to reschedule delivery of my Powerflex bushings to Monday Anyways, what is the point of jamming the pickle fork in there if you're ultimately banging on the control arm anyways? To give the bushing bracket reinforcement? Make it more rigid? Because in this case the fork is not doing any of the separating job but just wedge in there to hold on to the bushing bracket?

 

It's difficult to tell in the photos but when you have the pickle fork in all the way it actually wedges between the subframe and the control arm. It looks like tightening the bolt would only be squeezing the pickle fork between the balljoint bracket and the sunframe, but it doesn't. It actually pushes down on the control arm as you tighten the bolt.

The purpose of the pickle fork being shoved in that way is so that when you tighten the bolt next to it, it puts pressure between the subframe and the control arm (pushing them apart, in the same direction that you need them to go to pop loose). Theoretically if you just tighten that bolt to kingdom come it may have popped the balljoint out on its own... But I didn't want use the bolt alone to break the balljoint loose, as I feared I might break or strip the bolt or damage the subframe... but just having a lot of pressure pushing in the direction that you want things to go will help break the ball joint loose when you smack the control arm with a hammer gently.

I got the idea from an old bimmer i worked on once, which had a ball joint that was so difficult to remove that it broke 2 balljoint separators (not pickle forks). I ended up putting a balljoint separator on, tightening the bolt until it was tight (but not too tight) and then whacking the control arm with a sledge hammer and it popped right loose. I think the intense vibrations alone from the sledge hammer may have allowed it to pop loose once there was constant pressure on it. I'm not sure, but brute force was certainly not doing the trick. I applied the same concept here and it worked wonders.

The trouble is that if you just whack the control arm with a hammer the force will go in every direction and will probably be absorbed by the bad bushing or The balljoints. Of course this could also damage your balljoints, Or anything else you may hit by accident. Inserting the pickle fork ensures that when you hit the top of the control arm with the hammer, all of the force goes where you want it to, and the vibrations from the hits help it break free if it's rusted in place. Mine popped loose in 2-3 medium force hits.