How to Replace Front Upper Control Arm 2007-17 Ford Expedition

Okay, friends, one of the first things we need to do to get started on this job is to safely raise and support the truck. After you've done that, remove your center cover here. And then remove all six of your 21-millimeter lug nuts and get the wheel off. Now that the wheel's off, let's go ahead and get this ABS wire disconnected. I'm just gonna come right along here and then remove this 8-millimeter bolt. Now let's go ahead and remove our anchor bolt for our flex hose for the brakes. Let's go ahead and remove this little center cover. Now let's remove our axle nut. Now we're just gonna push on this axle stub here. If it doesn't move, just go ahead and put the nut back on a few good threads, and then give it a couple of loving bonks with a hammer. Now let's go ahead and get our cotter pin out for our tie rod. Set that aside for recycling. Let's remove the nut.

Now we're gonna use a hammer, and we're gonna hit right on the knuckle right here to try to break this free. Now let's remove our upper ball joint nut. Now we're just gonna separate these two. Now, the next thing we need to do is remove the bolt that's gonna be holding the front strut to the actual lower control arm. I'm gonna hold the bolt side on this with a wrench, and then I'll, of course, remove the nut. There we are. The next thing we're gonna wanna do is carefully pull down right along here, and then we can separate these two. Let's just go ahead and spray those mounting bolts from the top there. Now we're gonna go ahead and remove those three mounting nuts. All right. So that's almost off of there. Let's leave it on a couple of threads, and then we'll fully remove the other two.

There we are. All right. So now we're back to our last nut here. Let's make sure we hold up on that front strut so it can't fall out on us. All right. There it is, friends. Now that we have the front strut out of the way, we have a clear view of our mounting bolt that holds our control arm to the frame. I would just go ahead and use the swivel with an extension and then I'm gonna come in right like this. You can, of course, just use a 21-millimeter socket or wrench, and then I'm gonna come to the other side with another 21-millimeter, and I'm gonna hold that nut. It's nice and loose. Let's go ahead and get that nut off of there. There's the bolt. We'll do the same to the other side.

Okay. Get that nut off of there. There it is, friends. Now it's gonna be time to install our brand new upper control arm. Let's go ahead and slide this in. We're gonna line up those bolt holes, start them from the inside going out. Now let's just take a nice pry bar, stick it in here like this so it's holding, and then we're gonna put our control arm on top of it. That's gonna have the control arm so it's sitting in the same position as if we were on the ground. Go ahead and start on both of those nuts, and then we'll go ahead and snug them up. Snug it up. Now let's torque these to 111 foot-pounds. All right, friends, let's go ahead and get our strut up in here. Start all of your nuts, snug them up.

All right. Let's get this lower aspect in. Start the nut on there. Now we're gonna apply a little bit of pressure underneath the lower control arm so we can bring this up so it'd be almost like it's sitting on the ground, and then we'll go ahead and snug this. Go ahead. Let's snug this up. Let's torque this to 406 foot-pounds. Now with pressure still underneath there, let's go ahead and torque these upper mounting bolts as well. We're gonna torque these to 30 foot-pounds. The next thing we need to do is get our axle inside the knuckle as we push the knuckle up. You wanna be very careful not to damage your internal seal.

Now, I'm just gonna take a pry bar, come in and under here, and then I'm gonna try to put the ball joint through the knuckle. Go ahead and start that nut, snug it up, torque it to 85 foot-pounds. What you wanna do next is make sure that you have your slot lined up with the hole on your ball joint stud. If for some reason it isn't, you need to continue tightening until it is. Next, take your cotter pin, go ahead and put it through the slot and the hole, and then, of course, lock it down. Let's get our sway bar back up on here, start on both of the nuts, snug them up, and torque them to 41 foot-pounds. Do the same to the other side of the vehicle. Let's make sure we install our grease fitting. Apply some grease. The next thing we're gonna wanna do is put on our axle nut. I like to use a little bit of red thread locker, bottom it out, and then torque it to 20 foot-pounds.

Now that that's torqued, we're gonna go ahead and install this cover. You wanna make sure that it's not damaged in any way, go ahead and slide it right on there, and bottom it out. Now, before we can continue on to putting the brakes together, we wanna make sure that the hub mating surface and the back of the rotor mating surface is nice and clean. After you've done that, apply a little bit of copper Never-Seez. Let's go ahead and get our rotor back on here. I'm gonna start a lug nut on so it holds the rotor for me. Let's get our caliper reattached. We're gonna use some thread locker, of course, on the bolts. Start them both in, and then we're gonna torque them to 185 foot-pounds. Let's get our vacuum lines reattached. Now we're gonna reconnect in our bracket, ABS wire. Let's snug them up. Let's start resecuring our ABS wire. Make sure you go up and in between the brake line here, just like that.

This looks good for now. Make my way down here. Get a little push clip. It's gonna go into your hole right there. The rest of it should just line up. We'll continue on. Making our way up here, let's make sure we reconnect in our ABS wire, listen for a click, and then, of course, give it a nice tug. After that, you wanna make sure that you secure it back in up here. Make sure everything's nice and secured, and it's definitely not rubbing up against anything, and there's no way it can get caught. Let's get the outer tie rod end on here, snug this up, torque it to 85 foot-pounds. The next thing we wanna do is make sure that our slots line up with the hole in the stud for the tie rod. If for some reason it doesn't, you need to continue tightening until the next one does. Install your locking cotter pin and then lock it down. Let's get the wheel back up on here. Start all of your lug nuts, snug them up, and torque them to 150 foot-pounds.

Torqued. Okay, friends, so that's pretty much it. Aside from making sure you pump up that brake pedal, and then get yourself safely down to an alignment shop.