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Thread: Replacing front control arm ball joint only?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
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    Little Neck, NY, United S
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    My Cars
    E36's

    Replacing front control arm ball joint only?

    Hey all, I'm just swapping in E46 LCAs into my E36 and I've got the center ball joint spinning as I try to tighten the nut down.

    I know that BMW says you need to replace the whole arm, but is there any workaround that will work fine? Haven't been able to find anything on Google or elsewhere, I just know that my old 240sx rear ball joint was supposedly not replaceable but a Sentra front ball joint pressed in just fine. Any advice is much appreciated!

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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Location
    Chicagoland area
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    4,372
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    EXOTICS
    Not sure of the orientation of your swap,
    but can you place a jack under the center balljoint,
    to prevent spinning as you attempt to tighten nut?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    5,773
    My Cars
    99 M3

    Replacing front control arm ball joint only?

    Place a floor jack under the center BJ. That should provide enough ‘bite’ to tighten the BJ nut.

    Why do you want to replace the BJ in the E46 FLCA? Aluminum fatigues and can fail catastrophically, reusing old E46 alloy FLCAs is a bad idea, IMO (add grain of salt!!).

    There is a thread about replacing the BJ in E36 M3 FLCAs. I don’t know about replacing the non-‘M’ rubber isolated outer BJ with a solid BJ. Lemforder (and Meyle) produce E30 solid inner and outer BJs. The E36 non-‘M’ isolated BJ is replaceable (both BMW and Lemforder market replacements).

    http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showthread.php?t=402063

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Last edited by bluptgm3; 06-17-2018 at 08:41 AM.

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