I just completed project. Replaced badly rusted control arms, ball joints & tie rod ends. I went to Pick N Pull for practice on parts removal & to harvest replacement control arms. Ordered bushings, ball joints & tie rods from Rock auto. took my time doing the job & it went well. just eyeballed alignment to get to alignment shop. before alignment caster was 2.8 on left 1.8 on right, camber was .2 left .6 right toe was 2.35 total

 

I was going to use poly bushings but after the replies I had when I asked that question convinced me to stay with rubber.

The main reason was the Blazer is not a race vehicle and there is just no reason to go with poly. Plus the added effort of getting the rubber bushings out of their shells...if the poly bushings you are looking at reuse the shell; plus poly were 3x the price of rubber.

The cost for getting upper control arms with ball joint and rubber bushings is about 2x the price of poly bushings alone.

As noted above I removed the old rubber bushings from the OEM control arms...took me an hour just to get all four of them out and it takes some effort as they really do not want to come out. Then the time required to clean-up the OEM control arms, install the new bushings, then paint the control arms.....just was not worth all the extra time and effort.

Be advised that there are really cheap loaded control arms and I would stay away from them...they are cheap for a reason.

I was also able to reuse the cams after wire brushing...but that depends upon where you live...no snow here not alot of rain either.

Good job there salmonsub.

 

I just wanted to use poly so I would probably never have to replace them again.

 

My 99 needs new upper control arm bushings. Can bushings be replaced without removing control arm completely or do you recommend removing control arm.

 

The control arm must be removed to press out the old, and press in the new bushings. If you need to hire a machine shop do the press work, it would be cheaper to replace the entire arm, (it comes with new bushings and a [cheap quality] ball joint).

 

Ok Captain Hook thanks for the info.

 

Captain... in your opinion are the ball joints in the Moog control arm assemblies of cheap quality as well? I sure hope not as that is why I purchased the Moog arms instead of the ones that were half the price.

Oh and Tajohns34: yeah I had the same thought as well, but seeing how long the rubber lasted, I doubt that I have the Blazer long enough for this set to wear out. If they do, I have the OEM arms so I could just put the poly bushings in them.

 

One way to find out if the new arms have Moog K5320, top quality ball joints. On the top side of the joint, next to where the grease fitting screws in, it will be stamped: "Moog Problem Solver". My guess is that it's not there In which case, before you install the arm, do yourself a huge favor and install a K5320 problem solver joint while it's easy to get at the rivets to grind 'em off

 

In my experience, a person can order the moog control arms with the "good" ball joints or the "bad". The difference in price at the time I did mine was not worth the effort to swap out the upper ball joints. It made sense just to buy the uppers with the "good" ball joints bolted in. The lowers however made more sense to buy with the "bad" riveted in and swap them out for the "good". The bolted joints do have a grease zerk and say problem solver. The riveted joints do not have a grease zerk and do not say problem solver.

 

I wil have to check the upper ball joints to see if "Problem Solver" is there, I do not remember seeing it, so I guess I did not get the "good" ones. I did put "Problem Solver" lower ball joints in couple of years ago though.

When I replaced the upper control arms I should have replaced the two inner tie rod ends and the idler arm; going to soon, have new parts sitting on work bench, got Moog "Problem Solver" for both.