Well decided to take it upon myself and change out my upper control arms and sway bar links this evening. Before the car was sloppy as hell and would make noises when driving and stopping and starting and sitting... arrrrghhhH!:mad.

After getting all the right tools together... I found an excellent way to do it quick and right.

You need a lug wrench.
A floor jack.
1 ramp with mid support legs.
3/8 rachet
1/2" rachet
17mm socket
22mm socket
22mm wrench
Medium and Small Crescent wrenches
Breaker Bar (handle from jack...)
Some ingenuity
... and parts

Now this IS EAAAAASY....:D

Look under the side of the car near the edge. you will see a support rib running parallel to the jack points toward the mid and front. Keep this in mind. We will be exploiting this.

Jack the car up by placing the floor jack under the lower control arm mount. Jack the car up enough to be able to place the ramp under the side as close to the front door jamb as possible. Lower car and remove wheel.

Your car will be nice and stable this way. Great if you do not have floor jacks or they are flimsy.

Remove the 2 bolts that hold the sway bar link on. You may need to take a small crescent and hold the joint still (it has grooves to hold on to). This will be in the boot area of the joint. Now that you have the bolts off, you will notice that due to the relieved suspension, the bolts will be somewhat jammed. Dont worry about that yet. Let it sit for now.

Move on to removing the ball joint bolt behind the bottom of the rotor and plate. Remove the upper control arm bolt using the 22mm box end on the nut and the 1/2"drive and 22mm socket on the bolt. You will have to turn the bolt to remove the nut. There is no room to turn the nut itself. Be prepared to put some heave ho into these.

DO NOT REMOVE THE BOLT YET!!!:nono

Take a picklefork and this is tricky, but on the aft side of the rotor, go between the rotor and steering joint. Put the forks into the ball joint and wiggle or tap it down carefully. You will see how it goes. Now pound that fork as good as you can into the ball joint and leave it there.

NOW! Here is the trick... Take the floor jack and place the jack plate under the rotor. Don't worry unless you have huge rotors... You will not hit it or if you are worried, just use a block. Jack up the suspension up and if you have the picklefork in there right, the ball joint will pop out all by itself. I battled the first ball joint alone for an hour and figured this out and completed the complete other side in 35 minutes.

Now that you popped the ball joint, grab the picklefork and make sure. Then what you want to do is lower the jack SLOWLY and watch the sway bar links. You will get to a point where they will almost pop out too. You may have to pull them out by hand but if you have the shock compressed just right, it will slide right out. Now remove the bolt from the Control Arm Bushing and remove the control arm.

Now there is no need to move or lower the jack at this point as you are lined up to reinstall now.

Now to reinstall. Install your new control arm and mount the bushing side using the long bolt. Lightly thread the washer/nut to the other side but DO NOT TIGHTEN YET!!! We will do this later. Install the ball joint and Torque the nut to Bently specs (im tired and will enter #'s later).

Now install the sway bar link and torque the nuts to bently specs. This should be easy since you left the strut compressed with the jack right?

Now that you have everything buttoned up other than the bushing bolt, jack the suspension up until the car lifts just barely off the ramp. You have now preloaded the suspension and it is time to torque the bushing bolt to bently specs.

Now lower the jack and let the car rest once more on the ramp. Reinstall the wheel and torque the lugs to bently specs. Now jack the car up and remove the ramp.

Rinse and repeat on other side.:redspot

Hope this helps...

whack