Lower control arms

If I do my LCA Bushings on a drive on hoist, the type were the vehicle weight stays on the wheels as if it was on the road. I only remove one side at a time, will I have trouble replacing the control arm and aligning the holes? Will it be necessary to tie the axle so it does not move?

meaded said:

If I do my LCA Bushings on a drive on hoist, the type were the vehicle weight stays on the wheels as if it was on the road. I only remove one side at a time, will I have trouble replacing the control arm and aligning the holes? Will it be necessary to tie the axle so it does not move?

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That would depend on how bad the ULA Bushings are.
You should be able to use a come-along to move things back in place if needed.

The UCA bushngs are new have been replaced, the reason I ask is because one of those was a devil to line up. Would it be better to let the axle hang?

Either way a come-along makes it easer.

with my long arm kit and upper arms i would put the bolt thru the front of the control arm/axle mount and leave it loose then the rear of the arm was easier to get lined up. i had to put a punch thru one side and pry it a little to get it lined up. i've never put my stock lower control arms on but i have put the teraflex uppers on this way. done while on the tires/ground

I had to replace one of my LCA bushings and I just took the arm off, replaced bushing, put arm back on. All this while it was sitting on the ground. as long as you only do one arm at a time on level ground you should be fine. You may have to rock the front tire a little to get it to line up, then loose bolt them, rock it around (helps seat line up stuff) then tighten. That's all I did.

Some people (above) have been really lucky. I suspended the body on jackstands from just behind the LCA mounts, and let the axle hang, as per FSM procedure. Doing only one at a time, the axle rotated a lot. I needed a huge pipe wrench (like 3 feet long) locked on the axle tube, with a jack under it, to rotate it back so that I could reinstall the LCA. Actually, I put poly bushings in all control arms (one arm at a time). The control is great, but I don't like the squeeking. I used the supplied lubricant, then silicone brake grease on the last one (ran out of supplied lube). The weight must be on the arms (vehicle sitting on the tires) for the final torque-to-spec, according to the FSM.

I did a lower control arm replace on a stock MJ with the wheels on thr ground. Didn't need much to align the holes for the new one. I think it's much more difficult with the axle hanging so it can flop around.