Volhv_944

No bolt, no nothing. The hole has no threads, and is only there by chance.... possibly used during the part's manufacture, but serves no purpose on the car.

Mister Quickie

So the that portion of the 944online control arm only bolts "up" into the frame vertically but no horizontal bolt to secure it horizontally like the stock control arm?

Volhv_944

Yeah, it ain't going nowhere.
As you see it in the picture, bolt it up. The red poly bushing slides on, but the oem rubber ones need to be pressed.

Mister Quickie

Got her in but is it ready to be driven

1. The stock sway bar has a bolt that comes up into the control arm. The 944online doesn't have this hole (it has a hole but doesn't "line up" with the sway bar bolt), instead there's a "U" bracket that bolts up into the control arm.
The bushing went into the "U" bracket pretty tight but afterwards I noticed a gap between the stock bushing and the 944online "U" bracket (see picture). Ok to drive or is there a special bushing that fits in this "U" bracket?

2. The bolt that goes through the clamp that clamps the ball joint was a bear to get out and when it came out the threads were stripped. I hammered the new ball joint all the way back into the clamp but now an unstripped version of the same bolt only goes in one side of the clamp but gets stuck trying to get through the other clamp wing.
Only solution was to use a bolt with a slightly smaller diameter. I'm confident the tension is adequate but I don't know that this thinner bolt will fill the groove in the ball joint. What's the best way to deal with this issue?

Thx in advance

Mister Quickie

So the job is finally done, car tested, everything ok so far. I've documented the process but with the pictures the Word doc is 45MgB and I don't know if there's any other way to post this.

The only adverse effect is that now my steering is off. The steering wheel was straight, now it's about 30 degrees to the left and I didn't touch the tie rods ... ?

Arominus

You still need an alignment, that rear mount is slotted for suspension adjustment where the late arm uses that offset bolt to do it.

edit: you did buy the early style rear mount right?

Volhv_944

Did you get the early style outer sway bar bushings? They are D shaped unlike the late ones you have crammed in there.

Mister Quickie

I don't have the D shaped ones, I guess I'll get those.

I found the problem was that on the one side the control arm wasn't shoved in all the way to the bushing at the very rear so the bracket was bolted into the frame with the bushing not holding the control arm all the way through it like on the other side.

On a side not here's the pictures of both control arms. The dealer said the right one was shot and I shouldn't drive on it anymore but these bushings look ok to me, what am I missing?

theedge

The dealer may have been talking about the ball joints. The ball joints eventually wear out the socket in the arm and then the arm is ruined, unless you get one of the ball joint kits that can work around the work socket.

Those arms also have the older style of rear bushing (the black parts at the top of the pic). There are three versions, the early steel arm ones seen in an earlier pic, the early aluminum arm ones that you have, and then the vastly superior 968 ones that have less rubber and work better/longer.

Mister Quickie

Before I take it in for an alignment I want to get some input on the following.

The rear portion of the control arm on the passengers' side couldn't be shoved all the way into the bushing and the tip was inside the bushing maybe a 1/4". (the first pic which is close up) I couldn't tap it with a hammer in any further. The wheel drives and turns ok but barely, you can see it's closer than it used to be to the front fender (the first wheel pic with car facing east/right). I'm thinking because there's no bolt in the back of the control arm to "pull" the wheel back to the center of the wheel well. (which is also affecting the alignment)

The rear portion of the control arm on the drivers' side was shoved all the way into the bushing and the tip was sticking out the other end towards the rear by maybe a 1/2". After driving it maybe 20 miles it's now about 1/4" inside the bushing (second pic). Not sure if it's my imagination but the wheel on the drivers' side may be creeping closer to the front fender (last pic with car facing west/right).

I know everyone says the back part of the control arms not having a bolt to hold them in place horizontally, like the stock control arms have, isn't cause for concern but I just want to make sure that once these new control arms settle into a comfortable position that they remain there rather than creeping forward towards the fender ... ?

mikey_audiogeek

Can you show us a before and after? Also would like to see the new control arm on top of the old control arm.

If the problem was there before, then you have a frame problem.

If it's caused by the new arms then you have different problems.

Should be easy to figure this out by comparison. That's the risk you take with non-OE parts!

Cheers,
Mike

Mister Quickie

I should have taken the pics side by side. Didn't anticipate this.
The only thing I do know is that the steering wheel was straight ahead, now it's about 30 degrees to the left (the rear portion of the control arm that is the most "forward" is on the right side so that makes sense).
Also the wheels were in pretty much dead center in the wheel well.

Darwantae951

This looks odd.

Mister Quickie

Took it to the dealer for a 4 wheel alignment. Took two hours. Everything seems fine, except for the $250 no longer in my wallet.

Mister Quickie

Do you happen to know what size the bushings are. I type in year make and model and am getting different sizes:
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/acc...mString=search