Specifically I'm getting ready to swap my FT front adj. upper control arms for Currie adj. upper control arms. These aren't load bearing (right?). So i wanted to make sure it was okay to leave it on the ground. I just thought it might be easier. But if I need to lift it up I can.

Thoughts?

 

I just swapped out my uppers today with all tires on the ground, really no need to raise the axle if you change them out one at a time. WOL has a good control arm write up on his website that might help.

 

The only ones you can't are the rear uppers there's no way to do it with the wheels on the rest can all be done while its on the ground

 

Great to hear! How long did it take you? Did you do all 4?

I'll look for the write up. Thanks!

 

Yeah I knocked out all 4 of them today, took about 3hrs total. Uppers were far easier to install compared to the lowers, I had to ratchet strap my axle to get the lowers to line up haha. Took a little trial and error getting the castor set to what I was comfortable with.

 

I wish mine was going as well as yours did. Here's my day so far:

Tasks:
1. Grease all CA's
2. Swap front upper CA's

Issues:
1. Wrong zerk fitting on grease gun...need to get larger size (I thought they were all the same...not so)
2. Need a torque wrench to install CA's

So far:
1. Purchased torque wrench and new zerk adapter
2. Removed passenger upper CA
3. significant difficulty removing frame side bolt...wasn't able to "grab" it enough inside the frame to pull it out, and the exhaust was in the way to keep me from pounding it out from the other side.
4. Finally got it all ready to torque. Opened torque wrench package. Torqued frame side bolt. While pulling torque wrench (and extension) out of frame...18mm socket drops into the frame!
5. Call wife to have her pick up magnet tool at Home Depot to retrieve socket
6. Grab another 18mm socket from tool box, torque axle side. Break bolt in half before reaching 125ft. lbs
7. Now waiting for wife to get home, so I can go BACK to Home Depot to get replacement bolt.
8. Meanwhile my daughter is looking for my headlamp (that she played with and now is no longer in my toolbox) because I will be completing this after dark.

No worries...it's all part of learning I guess. It could be worse, I could be waiting in line at the DMV.

 

Hope you luck changes.

I did my front lowers yesterday with no issues in about an hour.

But I did have similar pain doing my drive shafts earlier this week. Took me two days, 4 trips to O'reilly, to finish those. In short the directions said that the pinion nut was 35mm. But all the nuts were different. 1 1/8 on the Front Pinion, 1 1/4 on the Front T-Case, 36mm on the rear T-Case, and 34mm for the rear pinion. Now I have a ton of huge sockets that I don't think I will need for tasks other than to remove the drives shafts again. There was also a trip to buy a new gear puller because somewhere in my last move I am missing a whole box of tools.

At least you have the wife's car, every time I had to go I had to reassemble my Jeep to a drive-able form, to include front wheel drive only at one point, which I don't recommend.

 

Yeah, that sounds a bit like my day. And yes, I'm very glad to have the wife and her car.

Second upper CA came off without much trouble. I wasn't able to locate a bolt to replace the broken one, so I'm going to have to finish it up tomorrow. Overall, not too bad, I just don't have a full suite of tools yet.