Anyone who has done a leveling kit or struts knows what a PIA it is to squeeze the 2 control arms back together. In all this time, I cant believe nobody figured out or posted( that I have seen), that all we had to do was de-torque ahd loosen the uppers frame bolts.When putting your knuckle back on, de-torque and loosen upper arm and you wont have to wrestle with trying to squeeze uppers and lowers together to mount knuckle. After everything else is together and torqued, set a jack stand under the lug bolts(small piece of wood between to protect threads) and lower truck to bring upper arm to ride height and then tighten and torque upper arm bushings to frame.

 

I used a ratchet strap wrapped around a floor jack to squeeze them together. Worked like a charm.

 

Yea I used a ratchet strap too, but with Deer's way, it's a lot easier to torque everything down to spec the "recommended" way with the weight of the vehicle on everything. I think I will do this next time.

 

I usually loosen the upper arm bolts, put it all back together and retighten. I need to retorque everything on my front end, maybe that's why it's popping after I replaced just about everything.

 

Retorque? Once and done baby....do it right the first time...lol

 

Listen if I did everything right the first time I'd never have anything to work on on my truck.

 

+1 there!

 

Yeah, those upper bolts are only torqued to 75 ft/lbs oem and 70 for moogs. They'll loosen up easy. It only took about 40-45 min to swap out the upper control arm.(thats including a beer and smoke)