Allright people there is no excuse for any one of us to have the factory control arm bushings or ball joint on our cars. This stuff is so easy to swap out it should be a crime for us to upgrade other parts of our suspension and brakes before we do these. This may take a good day of work to do so try and have everything you need there with you or do it in the parking lot of the parts store so you can run inside and get what you need. Of course you guys can do the sway bars and endlinks but this is by far the 2nd best bang for your buck upgrade on all of these cars.
Mazda has said that these control arms are non-serviceable but they are super easy to work with once you get them off the car. For those without a manual or those who have no intention of reading it just jack the front end up and pull the tires and everything you need will be right there. First unbolt the sway bar endlink and pull it out of the control arm. Next you're gonna unbolt the ball joint from the spindle which is no big deal and remove that bolt. Now comes the first bump in the road, seperating the ball joint from the spindle. Auto part places have special forks for this or you can just a pry bar if you have one handy. Give it a good bump and the control arm will release and lower itself from the spindle (its still bolted to the car of course). Now comes getting the control arm off the chassis. Its held on by two long bolts coming from the inner section through the arms. The right extensions here make all the difference and allow you to get enough torque on these babies to break them loose. I opted for using my foot to break them loose and it worked like you wouldnt believe. So now the control arm is off the car and the other one should be a breeze to get off now that you know where everything is.
This is the ball point press available at most auto part places. The deposit on them is like $50 but most places will also let you use it in the store if you so wish. The top piece in the wrapper is the threaded pushing screw that will actually be doing the work for you. The rings are just there to act as spacers and give you enough room for the balljoint to actually come all the way out and go back all the way in. You should use the middle ring.
Here it is partially assembled. Your ball joint tip will fit into that cup on the left while the butt of the joint will sit in that spacer and its adapter which fit onto the lower end of the C clamp. It really helps to have a friend here to hold the clamp and control arm while you make sure the adapters arent going to shift too much on you. Once its tight enough to stay together just crank on that screw and the ball joint will be pressed from the arm in a minute or two.
And this is the 2 or 3 jaw pulley you will use to remove your control arm bushings. I had better luck with using it as a 2 jaw puller but it might be more steady to use 3 IF you can get them seated. Normally this puller will come with a cup adapter for the puller screw to help distribute the pushing force. Not pictured are the always helpful propane torch and stack of washers. This jaw puller trick I learned from the MR2 boys and it worked wonders for me. Just warm the control arm bushing and metal (with or without the puller on there) and the crappy designed sleeved stock bushings should come right out.
PARTING A LOT OF 2g STUFF
