Alright, so the bolt on the inner ball joint of the control arm turns. The only thing we could fit over the nut was a wrench, and what we ended up doing was pulling the arm so the bolt would get wedged on the mounting point, turn wrench, loosen arm and turn wrench back (bolt would move with it), wedge bolt against mounting point again, turn wrench.. repeat.. It took SO long.

There has GOT to be an easier way to take the damn control arm off. Also, how am I expected to torque that nut back on?

Btw, this is an E36 328 we're working on.

Use a jack to apply pres to the control arm, with the beveled shape of the ball joint it will help "lock" the stud into the socket and prevent it from turning, if it still turns you can try coating the shaft area with lock tite or even lapping compound, I've never had to do this but I would think it would help.

Thank you, this helped very much :)

What method did you use?

I ended up using the jack to press the control arm up. Just as Robert Venable described, the stud locked in place and I was able to take the bolt off.

Now.. once the bolt was off, getting the control arm with the stud seized into the mounting point was another fun story. After lots of liquid wrench and hammering away.. we used a tie rod puller to get inbetween there and hammered that in.. then my friend proceeded to jump on it and the control arm plopped down. :devillook