You may also want to replace the ball joints while the control arms are out. They are pretty cheap and if you do I recommend taking them to a machine shop and having them drill the rivets out. Hammers and heat DO NOT work. And the bottom is sandwiched in the control arm. Cost me $10 per side and took him all of 10 minutes for all four. That's after he spent almost an hour with a torch and air hammer to get one rivet loose. Drilling is much cleaner and faster with a big drill press.

 

Drill?????????? Hell with that. Use an air chsiel and/or hammer. you could also use a grinder to remove the head of the rivit and then a punch and hammer to push it through but air is so much easier. took me about 30 seconds on the uppers which had 260k miles on them.

 

That was the first thing I tried to do, so did the machinist. No luck, I beat the crap out of the upper BJ with an 8lb attitude adjuster in a vise after grinding off the rivets. Would not break free for me. I even bent my biggest punch and broke the handle on my 32oz ball peen. If no one else has to drill them that's awesome. Bad luck for me.

 

AIR CHISEL and/or HAMMER. AIR being the operative word there. I guess i coulda been a little bit clearer by saying Air chisel/Air hammer.

 

I understood the air part, that was what the machinist was using. I didn't have those tools available to me at home. But it didn't matter on mine anyway, short of a torch, drilling was the only option.