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Part Details
TRQ suspension kits are manufactured using premium raw materials and coatings for extended service life. Each TRQ suspension component is designed to be a direct, maintenance-free replacement to the stock unit. To extend the life of your steering and suspension components, TRQ recommends replacing components in pairs, sets, or kits. All products are fit and road-tested in our Massachusetts R&D facility to ensure we deliver on our promise of Trusted Reliable Quality.
Product Features
Install Tip: When replacing steering components, have a professional alignment performed afterwards. This ensures proper tracking and even tire wear.
Our steering and suspension components are pre-greased and sealed for long life and do not require the extra maintenance typically required by greaseable versions.
Item Condition:
New
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WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including Chromium (Hexavalent Compounds), which is known to the State of California to cause cancer, and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information, go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Lifetime Warranty
This item is backed by our limited lifetime warranty. In the event that this item should fail due to manufacturing defects during intended use, we will replace the part free of charge. This warranty covers the cost of the part only.
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Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks!
In this video, we're going to show you how to replace the front control arm in this 2010 Buick Enclave, but this is basically the same process for this generation of GM SUVs the Enclave, Acadia, Outlook, and Traverse. We're going to show you on the passenger side, but the driver's side is the same procedure. We do recommend you replace these in pairs, because usually whatever is wrong with one side, whether it's a ball joint or rust, is eventually going to happen to the other side. You're going to need new control arms from 1AAuto.com, jack and jack stands, 8-24 millimeter sockets and/or wrenches, 8 and 21 millimeter wrenches you will need, ratchets and extensions, large hammer, penetrating oil, torque wrench, and after this repair you will need a front end alignment done on your vehicle.
You're going to start by removing the front wheel. You're going to remove the cap if you have one. Then the lug nuts are 22 millimeter. If you don't have the benefit of air tools, loosen up your lug nuts first, then raise and secure the vehicle, and then remove the lug nuts, wheel, and tire.
Use penetrating oil on the stabilizer link where it hooks to the strut, and then an 18 millimeter wrench. You'll first loosen it up, use another wrench, hook it on there, or use a larger socket and ratchet. Loosen up the nut first, and then you'll want to put either an 8 millimeter wrench or an 8 millimeter ratchet, and if you turn the ratchet clockwise, it actually drives the stud out of the nut. The other thing you can do is you can use a set of locking pliers and hook them on the backside once you get it loosened up enough, and then remove the nut with your wrench. That's just another way to do it. Then put that stabilizer link to the side.
The control arm attaches at three different points: a nut on the front, 24 millimeter, a nut on top of the ball joint that's 21 millimeter, and then a bolt and nut, they're 21 millimeter, that hold the rear of the control arm into the frame. Use a socket and breaker-bar, or double wrench method, which is a 24 millimeter wrench, and then you hook another wrench onto it for extra leverage and loosen up that front nut, and once it gets loose you can use your regular ratchet, or just the wrench, and you can remove that nut all the way. On the back fastener you'll need a 21 millimeter wrench and either another 21 millimeter wrench or a 21 millimeter socket with a ratchet. It can help to have a deep socket in this case.
I was able to get by with a regular socket and just put the ratchet into it a little bit. Remove that nut, but leave the bolt in place. Then you're going to want to put some pressure up from underneath on the suspension. This will help hold the ball joint shaft into the steering knuckle. Mine actually broke loose fairly easily. Spray a little bit of penetrating oil on the top of that ball joint stud. 21 millimeter wrench, kind of hook it in under there. You will need a wrench to get under the CV joint, and once you get it loose it actually came loose pretty easily remove the nut most of the way, and then you'll want to break the control arm loose. Mine actually just comes loose as I lower down the control arm. You may have to give the steering knuckle a couple of hits with a hammer. I'll show you just how to hit it.
You can see that my control arm actually just comes loose, which I was actually kind of surprised about. If you should need to hit it with a hammer - see, it came loose right there with just a little tap of my hand. Hit the knuckle right there with the hammer while the control arm is hanging down, and you leave the nut on, just to keep things together. Now, I'm going to remove... there are two bolts that go through and they have nuts on top, I'm just loosening them up first. These are 18 millimeter, they hold the mount in place. I'm going to remove one of the bolts, and I'm going to loosen up the other bolt so that mount will swivel and allow me to get the control arm out. I remove one bolt and loosen up the other one.
In order to get that rear bolt out, you have to take your jack and jack up the stabilizer bar. Jack it up a little bit, make a little tap that bolt out some, raise it up a little bit more, and use a pry bar just to tap on that part. Raise it up a little bit more and take the nut off of the ball joint. I kind of take that nut off the ball joint, drop the control arm down, and then you can move the control arm around and take that bolt right out of there. Then you'll need to let your jack down out of the stabilizer bar to get the control arm out the rest of the way. Here you can see on the right the new control arm from 1AAuto. On the left is the rusted one that has a bad ball joint, and the control arm from 1A Auto's going to go in exactly the same.
When you go to reinstall, just take the shipping protectors off of the front shaft and off of the ball joint. Keep that nut in your hand and throw the protector away. Put the front shaft in first. Put the rear mount just kind of into place, and then get the ball joint up into place. You might have to push the ball joint just to angle it better. Push the ball joint up in the steering knuckle and then just thread the nut on there to hold it in place. Put your jack back under the stabilizer bar and raise it up and out of the way so you can get that bolt in. Then you use two screwdrivers, or you can use something a little bigger. There are slots in the mount, and you just move those. It would help to have another pair of hands. While one person puts the control arm into place, the other one can put the bolt in.
I was able to hold it well enough and get the bolt started it, and then you just kind of manipulate the control arm and tap it in with the hammer. Now, work that front mount bolt you put into place, and push it in there. I'd just kind of use a combination of pushing it up in there and threading it in, and then it goes in, and I put the bolt on the other side, or the nut on the other side. At this point, you can tighten those up, and you want to torque those to 70 foot pounds.
Now, you can put that 24 millimeter nut back in place. You let your stabilizer bar back down, put the 21 millimeter nut back on there, and, at this point, I'm just going to preliminarily tighten both of those. I'm going to torque them up a little bit later. Just get them on there so they're snug. Same thing with the 24 millimeter nut. Now, we're going to put pressure back up underneath the control arm. That holds that stud into place. I tap on the steering knuckle just to allow it to kind of get some pressure and seat itself, and then you want to tighten it to about 100 foot-pounds. I just kind of try and roughly do it with the 21 millimeter wrench and the other wrench for some extra torque.
The stabilizer link is back in place. Just make sure you get the ABS wire on the correct side of it. I put it back in place. I still have the locking pliers on there, so I just left them on there. Put the nut on, then tighten it up until the walking pliers start to get pitched, and you could have skipped this step and just done what I do next, which is just have your wrench, your 18 millimeter wrench on there using 8 millimeter socket and ratchet, and you actually drive the socket and ratchet counterclockwise, which pulls the stud through, and then tighten it up with the wrench. Make sure your harness is clipped back in place.
Next, we're going to torque those other two fasteners, so the vehicle is now on the ground. You can see the lift, and there's nothing holding up the front. What is holding up the front is I have my jack underneath the control arm, and the car's basically in a level position. Now I'm going to torque that front 24 millimeter nut to 120 to 130 foot pounds, and that rear one, 95 to 105 foot pounds, and notice I have the torque wrench on the nut end, and I was holding the other end with the wrench.
Now we can raise the vehicle back up, put the tire on, and then just thread the lug nuts on preliminarily. With the vehicle still in the air, you can just tighten the lug nuts up preliminarily. You're not tightening them up all the way here. Just so they're snug. Lower the vehicle back down. Torque the lug nuts to 110 foot pounds, and I use a crossing pattern. Torque one, go to the opposite one, and then go to the opposite one minus one, and the opposite one, and then I just go right around and check them. Then last, but not least, put the cap back on, and you will want to have a front end wheel alignment done after you've done this repair.
Thanks for tuning in. We hope this video helped you out. Next time you need parts for your car, please visit 1AAuto.com. Also check out our other helpful how-to and diagnosis videos.
Tools used
Now, you can take the lug nuts off. Use a 22-millimeter socket, so you can get the wheel off. Grab the wheel, slide it off. I'm gonna loosen up the jam nut. Just take a 15/16 wrench and loosen it up. That's good. I'm just gonna take a little rust penetrant, just spray down the tie rod stud. That'll make it a little easier to take that nut off. I'm just gonna take a pry bar, and just pry below the strut, and prying down on the tie rod to help the stud from spinning. And then use a 21-millimeter socket to take that nut off. Now, just take a hammer and hit on the bottom of the stud going up. We take this off, you're gonna want to count the threads, so, 1, 2, 3, 17, 17, and just write that number down somewhere. That's gonna make it easier for when you put it back together to get it close. So that when you go to have the alignment done, it's actually a little bit closer than if you didn't count the threads. We're gonna take some locking pliers, and just lock them onto the inner tie rod, and take a 24-millimeter socket, and take this nut off. Now, you can take this clamp off. The boot, use some hose clamp pliers or just some regular pliers, and just slide that off.
On the backside of this boot there is a clamp. If you just take a long pick and find where the clamp is put together or where it's pinched together, you can loosen up that pinched part, just spread it apart a little bit, and you might be able to slide the boot off. And most of the time you have to replace these clamps. But sometimes if you don't damage them too bad, you can reuse them. And there we go, that's slid off. If you're doing the right side, you can turn the steering wheel all the way to the left, that's gonna push this out really far. If you're doing the other side, just do the opposite, and try to get some locking pliers as close to the tie rod as possible. That's good. This is just gonna prevent the shaft from spinning and damaging any internal components in the steering rack itself. Then take a tie rod remover tool, get the correct adapter that fits. Slide this in position. All right, and loosen up the tie rod. Hold the locking pliers, there we go. Take your tool out. I'm just doing this by hand. There you go. Take the new tie rod in, inner tie rod in, and just apply a little bit of thread lock adhesive. And you can clean these threads out on the rack, use a little brake parts cleaner and a rag, just wipe that out, and thread this in. Now, you can put the adapter on and torque this to 74 foot-pounds. Now I'm gonna put the boot on. Now, my clamp is still reusable, so leave that on. If not, you could always use a wire tie if you have to. Now to tighten that clamp, I have these special pliers to tighten that. So just be creative on how to get this around here. You may have to take a heat shield off if you wanna get it from underneath, or you can try to get it in from up here. And if you don't have those pliers and can't access that, sometimes just carefully using some side cutters. You don't want to cut it, but you can pinch it just enough to lock it on there. Just make sure it doesn't twist, and that's good. Take that outer hose clamp or boot clamp, use some hose clamp pliers, and slide it back on. That's good. And put the jam nut back on. Now take the outer tie rod in, and count the threads when you go on, 1, 2, 17. And I'll just move the jam nut little closer, and take the stud, and line it up with the knuckle. Take the nut, the nut on. Now, take a pry bar, go under the strut, slide this down. And then I'm gonna torque this nut to 22 foot-pounds. And if you have an angled meter, you're gonna want to torque this an additional 120 degrees. If you don't, just do the best you can. That's 90, then I'll go another 30 degrees. I'm just estimating. That's about right, and we can tighten up the jam nut. If you have the ability to torque this, you can torque it to 55 foot-pounds. Put the wheel back on. I'm gonna tighten the lug nuts down, torque them to 140 foot-pounds in a cross pattern, so that it tightens the wheel down evenly. Go around again just to double check.
Tools used
I'm going to remove the wheel, use a 22-millimeter socket. I'm going to pull the wheel off. I'm going to take this nut off, use a 24-millimeter socket. You're going to take these two bolts out and there's two nuts on top. Use an 18-millimeter wrench to hold the nuts and then an 18-millimeter socket for the bottom. Take those out. To get these trim clips off, choose the trim clip tool. Now, you can use a pry bar, just pry on the control arm a little bit, try to slide this out. And take a hammer and just give it a tap and pry it off. Just like that. Take the new bushing. There is a ring right here, this steel ring that goes towards the back of the vehicle. This happens to have a blue collar right here. The white one, this goes towards the front of the vehicle, and just slide this in position. There you go.
Now, it's lined up. I'll just give it a tap on them. Make sure you use a rubber hammer or a dead blow. Get that to line up. That's good. I'll get that nut started and take these bolts. Get these bolts started and then put the nuts on top. Now, I'll snug these up first, and then use a torque wrench and torque these to 55-foot pounds. Then, I'm going to use a screw jack and raise up the lower control arm. You want this as close to ride height as possible. Ideally, you would want to put the tire on, lower the vehicle down to ride height, and then torque this, but it's not easy to get a torque wrench underneath the vehicle. So do the best you can. And then, torque this nut to 140-foot pounds. And then lower the control arm down. I'm gonna put the tire on. Now, I'm going to torque these lug nuts to 140-foot pounds in a cross pattern or a star pattern to tighten the wheel down evenly.
Now, go around again just to double-check.
Tools used
I'm gonna remove the wheel, use a 22 millimeter socket. I'm gonna pull the wheel off. I'm gonna take this ball joint nut off. You can use a 21 millimeter wrench to loosen it up. And take that off. I'm gonna use a pickle fork to disconnect the ball joint from the knuckle. There's different types of tools that you can use. There we go. It's separated. I'm gonna take these two bolts out. There is nuts on the top. Use an 18 millimeter wrench, those on the nuts. And then use an 18 millimeter socket to take the bolts out.
Now to remove this bolt and nut, we're gonna have to loosen up the link for the sway bar. The sway bar is in the way right now, if we were to pull that bolt out. You can try to slide that out, but most likely it's gonna be in your way, so we have to take the link off on this side and on the opposite side. I'm just gonna use a little rust penetrant. There's a little bit of rust on the stud. Take an 18 millimeter wrench and we can loosen up the nut. And this stud is gonna spin, so you wanna use an 8 millimeter socket, put it on the stud. You could try to loosen this up with an impact. But the stud is just gonna spin.
And take the nut off. Now you can take the stud out, just like that. With both of those links disconnected, then you can slide the whole sway bar up, and then you can access that bolt. And you can use a 21 millimeter socket and a 21 millimeter wrench on the nut. And loosen this up. You can slide the bolt up. Now just take a pry bar and just pry this out. There you go. Now take a 24 millimeter socket to take this nut off.
Then you can slide this bushing off. Now, you're gonna take that protector off and slide this bushing on. Now where this ring is, that goes towards the inside of the bushing. On this bushing it happens to have this blue area right here, the outside is white. Take the nut and just snug this up a little bit. We're gonna torque it later. And loosen it up a little. We want this to be able to move. I'm gonna take the new control arm and then just slide it in position. Take the ball joint, slide it into the knuckle. You can take the nut. Get that started. Now, get this bolt lined up, and put the nut on. Now, I'm gonna take these two bolts. Slide those through. Put the nut on top. Now, I'm gonna snug these down first. Use an 18 millimeter wrench up top, 18 millimeter socket down below.
Now, I'm gonna tighten these bolts to 55 foot pounds. Now, I'm gonna put a screw jack underneath the control arm and safely support the control arm. You wanna get the control arm as close to ride height as possible. It would be ideal if you could put the tire back on, put the vehicle down and then torque the nut here and torque the bolt here, but it's not that easy to get a torque wrench under there. So do the best you can to get this close. Then you can use a 13/16 wrench or a 21 millimeter wrench, 21 millimeter socket on the bolt and torque this to 111 foot pounds.
I'm gonna torque this nut to 144 foot pounds. Now we can use our wrench while this lower control arm is still supported, and tighten this nut up. And then once you get it tight, if you have the ability to put a torque wrench on there, you can torque that bolt, that nut to 30 foot pounds and then an additional 90 degrees. Now, I can lower this down, and slide that up, the sway bar up. Slide the link stud through this bracket on the strut, get the nut started and use an 18 millimeter wrench, 18 millimeter socket to tighten this up. And torque this nut to 59 foot pounds. I'm gonna put the tire on.
Now, I'm gonna torque these lug nuts to 140 foot pounds in a cross pattern or a star pattern to tighten the wheel down evenly.
Now I'll go around again just to double check. Now when you've done this job, you're gonna need to bring the vehicle to a shop to have it aligned, otherwise you're gonna have premature tire wear.
Tools used
Now, you can take the lug nuts off. Use the 22-millimeter socket, so you can get the wheel off. Grab the wheel, slide it off. I'm gonna loosen up the jam nut. Just take a 15/16 wrench and loosen it up. That's good. I'm just gonna take a little rust penetrant, just spray down the tie rod stud. That'll make it a little easier to take that nut off. I'm just gonna take a pry bar, and just pry below the strut, and prying down on the tie rod to help the stud from spinning. And then use a 21-millimeter socket, take that nut off. Now, just take a hammer and hit on the bottom of the stud, going up. When you take this off, you're gonna want to count the threads, so, 1, 2, 3...17, 17, and just write that number down somewhere.
That's gonna make it easier for when you put it back together to get it close so that when you go to have the alignment done, it's actually a little bit closer than if you didn't count the threads. Now, take the outer tie rod end and count the threads when you go on. 1, 2...17. And I'll just move the jam nut a little closer and take the stud and line it up with the nut hole.
Take the nut, put the nut on. Now I'll take a pry bar, go under the strut, slide this down. And then I'm gonna torque this nut to 22 foot-pounds. And if you have angle meter, you're gonna want to torque this an additional 120 degrees. If you don't, just do the best you can. That's 90, then I'll go another 30 degrees. I'm just estimating; that's about right. And we can tighten up the jam nut. If you have the ability to torque this, you can torque it to 55 foot-pounds. Now, put the wheel back on.
Now I'm gonna tighten the lug nuts down, torque them to 140 foot-pounds in a cross pattern so that it tightens the wheel down evenly. Go around again. Double check.
Tools used
I'm gonna take a 22-millimeter socket and remove these lug nuts on the wheel. Now, I'm gonna remove the wheel. We're gonna take this nut off first. I'm using locking pliers behind just to hold the stud from spinning.
Now, what you could do is take an 18-millimeter wrench and then a socket on the end of this, and loosen it up that way. But this is a lot easier using the 18-millimeter socket. I might have to tighten this up a little more, and take that nut off. Now, that that's separated. I also separated the other side and that makes it easier, so, it's a good idea to do them both in pairs.
And then you can slide this down, and then you can gain access to this nut. We'll do the same on this one. Use some locking pliers, hold the stud from spinning, 18-millimeter socket, it comes right off.
Take the new link and slide it up. You're going to slide the stud towards the middle of the vehicle, and put the nut on using an 18-millimeter wrench then a 18-millimeter socket. Torque this down first. Torque this nut to 55 foot-pounds.
Slide that into the bottom of the strut. Take the nut, put that on. Take an 18-millimeter wrench on the inside, 18-millimeter socket, tighten this up. And torque this to 59 foot-pounds.
All right. Now I'm gonna put the tire back on, and the put the lug nuts on. Now, you're gonna tighten the lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds in a cross pattern to tighten the wheel down evenly. I'll just go round again to double-check.
Tools used
I'm gonna remove the wheel. Use a 22-millimeter socket, and pull the wheel off. I'm just gonna use a little rust penetrant. There's a little bit of rust on the stud. Take an 18-millimeter wrench, and you can loosen up the nut. And the stud is gonna spin, so you want to use an 8-millimeter socket. Put it on the stud.
You could try to loosen this up with an impact, but the stud is just gonna spin. And take the nut off. Now you can take the stud out, just like that. You can take this nut off the same way you took the other one off, if you use a 18-millimeter wrench and a 8-millimeter socket, or you can take some locking pliers, get on the back side, and use an 18-millimeter socket. Try to get it off that way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Now take the new link, slide it back in position. Put the nut on. And for the stud on this new link, we have a, there's actually a spot where you can put a wrench, so you can use an 18-millimeter wrench, 18-millimeter socket. I'm gonna snug this up first. And I'm gonna torque this nut to 55 foot-pounds. And slide the sway bar up. Slide the link stud through this bracket on the strut. Get the nut started, then use an 18-millimeter wrench, 18-millimeter socket. Tighten this up. And torque this nut to 59 foot-pounds. And put the tire on.
Now I'm gonna torque these lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds, in a cross pattern or a star pattern, to tighten the wheel down evenly. Now go around again. Just double check.
