Upper control arm bushings replacement

[Fiatracertracer]

Hello all, I am a week old owner of a 1982 Fiat 124 spider and for the first time yesterday I was able to raise the vehicle on a lift and have a look under there for any problems and I noticed a few.

1. The upper control arm ball joints need replacement and they are an integrated part of the arm. Can the old broken deteriorated ball joints be replaced by drilling the old rivets out of the control arm and installing a new ball joint in its place with new nuts and bolts?

2. Many of the bushings under there have deteriorated, is there a replacement bushing kit available?

3. I found rust penetration holes in the floor boards, are new floor boards available for replacement, what is a good way to repair this.

4. the whole underneath has been sprayed with foam insulation hiding rust, how do I go about cleaning this whole thing off for further inspection.

[Ptoneill]

Sounds like you have a Project on your hands......

1. Yes you can drill out the rivets and replace them with bolts, mind had bolts already. Ot you can order new arms with bushings and ball joints installed from various dealers.

2. See above, or you can also buy parts from any major car parts store, I think I used Doreman parts....but they are all available over the counter.

3. There are complete floor board panels available, try searching on line. Make sure you read the descriptions carefully as different years gas different designs. Also make sure you pay attention when ordering seat rails if needed as they can get different also. Prices vary so look as several sites....or do like a lot of folks and cut and paste metal into the bad spots.

4. Ok this is a pain in the butt, you can chip or grind it off or you can scrape possible problem areas to see if there is damage before stripping the whole undercarriage. If you can see rot then clear from there to isolate it. If you are doing the whole undercarriage then either buy/make a rotisserie or put the car on stands and be prepared to get very dirty!


Good luck!

[RoyBatty]

http://www.autoricambi.us/

[Fiatracertracer]

Could I get some assistance in locating past posts on the procedure to remove the Upper control arms.

[vandor]

Could I get some assistance in locating past posts on the procedure to remove the Upper control arms.

First put a jack under the lower balljoint and jack up the suspension a little so that the upper arm is not resting on the spring.

Those are pretty easy compared to the lowers. You will need a way to separate the balljoint from the spindle. You can rent a 'pickle fork' from a local auto parts store and hammer it between the joint and the spindle once you removed the balljoint nut.
It usually comes loose after a lot of hammering with a large hammer. The other method is to loosen the nut and then hammer the spindle where the bj goes through it. A sufficiently big blow will compress the hole in the spindle and the bj will get loose.

Once that is loose you simply take the nut off the arm's pivot bolt, slide the bolt out and remove the arm.

[Fiatracertracer]

Thank you