99 SHO - control arm replacment questions

Hello,
I've been fighting a front end noise for a few weeks now. It's coming from the driver's side.
I'm fairly confident I have it located, but just in case you need some evidence...

Lower ball joints, outer/inner tie rods, sway bar end links -- All new.

HAD a sub frame bushing noise previously, repaired that, plus this sounds different.

Took it to a local shop I have quite a bit of respect for. They narrowed it down to the cv axle. I replaced it. No improvement.

Knowing all that, and by some troubleshooting I did on my own I believe it is coming from the front connection of the control arm to the sub-frame.

I've done all the aforementioned repairs myself, so I'm well aware of the disassembly process.

What I really need to know is, what do I need to know about removing the actual control arm?

I have been told that I need to lift the engine/trans off the sub frame slightly to clear the front control arm bolt enough to remove the control arm. That's a process I'm not familiar with. I know there is a motor/trans mount right near that a-arm connection. Can I just loosen that and lift with a jack (and I assume a piece of wood as a "cushion") or are there other motor mounts that will need to be loosened as well?

Sounds like a lot of shotgunning, and you haven't described the noise. In my experience the noise due to a bad CV joint would be a lot different than the noise from a bad lower control arm. Care to better describe the noise?

-Rod

i've described it several times, and i had a good shop look at it, and that's gotten me down $100 and not fixed so i feel my personal diagnosis is as good as any at this point.
I've also discussed it at shoforum and taurusclub.
I'm much more concerned w/the replacement procedure.

Tr's and bj's were done for prev maint, not due to the noise.

But since you asked...It's basically a loud pop. It originated all at once when i hit a big bump in a construction zone (overlay). At the time i thought an end link broke, that's the type of clank it made.
It is most easily reproduced by braking and accelerating quickly. But if i brake once and make it pop, i can't brake again and make it pop until it pops in the direction of accel. Make any sense?
I made my personal diagnosis by having an asst. roll it fwd a ft and hit the brake, then back a foot. It pops in both directions. EVentually i reached through the wheel well so i could feel the lca during the pop and i thought i felt it shift.

I already have the new lca w/bushings which was <$50. Worst case is it's not the prob and i've eliminated another possibility.

Fwiw, spring is fine, strut mount looks solid.
Sway bar bushings aren't in great cond, but they're not making any noise.
I've also dealt with and repaired a sub-frame bushing pop recently. This isn't that.

i just ran it back by the shop that gave me the cv joint diagnosis. I was able to rock the car back and forth manually while he watched the lca. He agreed that is the source. If i can save $40 and just replace the bushing i'll just do that, but i won't be surprised if there's a broken weld. In that case i'll just put the new lca on and get the new back bushing in the process.

Still would like more "how to" info.

Update:
It's not the LCA bushing I was certain it was. It's the front DS subframe bushing. It's rusted and in pieces. If I had just taken the splash guard off to look I would have seen it.

I'm pretty disappointed that the shop I have (had?) so much respect for couldn't tell me this in 5 minutes.

I got it all apart before I noticed the condition of the sub frame bushing.
Since I already had LCA parts in hand I went ahead and pulled that just to see what condition it is in. The bushing's not in great shape, but it probably wouldn't have caused any issues for at least a couple more years.
Oh well, I'm going to go ahead and replace the lca front bushing, and the subframe bushing since I have them both and neither are very expensive.

BTW, I used a small floor jack and about a 12x12 piece of mdf to raise the motor in order to get the front lca bolt out.
It wasn't that tricky. There's one large nut on the trans/motor mount that sits right in the middle of the wheel well. That nut comes off and you can lift the trans a couple inches. I also loosened that front sub frame nut to gain another fraction of an inch. I ended up with JUST enough clearance to get that bolt out of the front LCA bushing, seriously, a 1/16" less clearance probably wouldn't have been enough.

You've made a lot of progress while I was camping this weekend, and it sounds like you no longer need instructions on removing the control arm.

As I was reading your post describing the noise I was thinking it sounded a bit like the symptoms I had on my first car, an 1988 Escort EXP. That car would also pull under hard braking from highway speeds. That ended up being a cracked weld on at the rear unibody, just behind where the subframe attached to the rest of the body. If the subframe mount doesn't end up fixing yours, inspect the unibody welds carefully. We had my car on the hoist 3 times before noticing the crack.

-Rod

Just got back from test driving.
It's cured.
Disappointed one of the few shops left that I thought I liked misdiagnosed it twice for a grand total of about $100 of unnecessary spending and 8+ hrs of unnecessary work.
:disappoin

FWIW - I used a ball joint press (advance auto loaner) on the control arm bushing. Getting it OUT was no big deal. Getting it IN was a HUGE fiasco. I spent a half hour or so initially using different adapters, dead blow hammers, whatever I could think of. Couldn't even get it started.
Eventually I ended up putting the CA in the oven for 15 min or so at 250 and the bushing in the freezer. I rounded up my preferred adapters for the BJ press and started pressing immediately after getting them out of the oven/freezer. That was just to get it started. Then I hurried them back outside to use another couple adapters to press it all the way into place. I must have wasted close to a couple hours on that.
If I had it to do over again I would have replaced the entire CA. It would have been worth the $60 difference to save the time/hassle.

Put new front rotors (warranty replacement - props to Advance Auto :thumbsup:) on while I was at it, also removed the intake silencer - amazing difference.

Good info on getting the new ball joint installed. I ran in to a similar issue on my wife's former Lincoln LS. On that car the ball joint was pressed in to the hub and there was no clean way to to get to it straight so I just bought a new hub. I wish there had only been a $60 difference there....

Congrats on getting the noise solved, and thank you for following up on what you found!

-Rod

It was the control arm bushing, but - same principle.

On the taurus the standard ball joint adapter worked fine on ball joints.