How to Replace Rear Upper Control Arm 2005-16 Toyota RAV4

What's up, guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video I'm going to show you how to replace the rear upper control arm in this 2010 Toyota Rav 4. If you need any parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com. Alright, I'm going to pull this wheel off. I'm going to use a 21 millimeter socket and an air gun. If you don't have an air gun, you can use a breaker bar, just break the lug nuts free while the vehicle is still on the ground. Take the wheel off.

I want to take the wheel speed sensor out so I'm going to use a 10 millimeter socket and ratchet. Take this bolt out right here. Get that bolt out, try to grab the sensor, wiggle it, and sometimes it'll pull right out. If you struggle a little bit, just take a pair of pliers and just wiggle it out. Then I want to pull the wiring harness out of the way so I'm going to take the nuts off right here. There's a bracket that holds the wiring on and then there's two other brackets on this upper control arm, so take those off with the same 10 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Loosen that up, pull that out.

We're going to pull these two off and I'm just removing this so that I don't put too much tension on the wiring harness. You don't want to break the wiring harness and actually if you're pulling this arm out, you have to take these off anyway. Slide that out. Just remember the way that the wiring harness was rooted, then we can set this over here and set it aside. I'm just going to use a little rust penetrant right here on this nut, on the bolt a little bit.

Okay, I'm going to use a 17 millimeter wrench. Just put it on the nut on that side, and then a 17 millimeter socket and air gun on this side. If you don't have an air gun, just use a breaker bar and we're going to loosen this up. Got the nut off, which is good. I'm going to try to take this bolt out. I'm going to have to push on this area. You might need a pry bar to get this out and I'm going to use the center punch right here and just tap that bolt through. Just try not to be too close to this area when you're taking this out just in case it kicks back on you.

You should use a 17 millimeter socket and ratchet. You should be able to unscrew it the rest of the way. I'm pulling on it, giving it a little bit of force. It's just a little bit rusty, that's why it doesn't slide out too smooth. Now I should be able to take a pry bar, pry this out. You can take a hammer and just give it a little tap. Slide that out like that. Before I take these bolts out, you want to keep in mind the distance right here. You could actually take a measuring tape and measure this because when you reinstall this or you replace it, you're going to want to tighten that bolt where this control arm is in this location. That'll make that bushing last a lot longer so keep that in mind when you go to tighten that up.

It would be ideal if when you bolt this all together and you put the wheel on, put the vehicle down on the ground and then tighten it down, but it's hard to get a torque wrench in there at that point. So just keep in mind the distance right here and here. So there's three inches right there, so I'm going to put this back at three inches when we reinstall it.

From underneath here, I have a breaker bar and a 17 millimeter socket right there and then I'm going to get a 17 millimeter wrench and put it on the nut side here, and I'm going to loosen this up. It's just easier to use a breaker bar. Once you crack it free, then you can use a socket and a ratchet. Get an electric ratchet, take the nut off. Grab the bolt, slide it out, and I can grab the upper control arm and just slide it right up.

Alright, let's slide this upper control arm back in. Take the bolt, slide the bolt in from the back of the vehicle towards the front and then take the nut, get the nut started. Then I'll take my 17 millimeter wrench and 17 millimeter socket and ratchet, I'm just going to hold the control arm in somewhat the area where I wanted it. Let's see if I can snug that up. That's pretty good right there. The measuring tape, hopefully it just slides right there. It's about where it was, around three inches. Alright, now just get the 17 millimeter socket with a ratchet. Tighten this up and make sure you have your wrench on there. Tighten that up.

Alright, now I'm going to take the 17 millimeter socket and a torque wrench with the wrench on the nut and I want to torque that to 66 foot pounds. There we go. Alright, so I just moved the screw jack out a little bit. If you have your floor jack, you could raise it up from over here. Just be careful, you don't want this to slip off. I'm just going to raise this up so that it's easier to attach the upper control arm. Pry this over a little bit and pry it down. Get it lined up. All right, it's pretty good.

This right here, I'm just going to take a pick, just try to get this over a little bit. If you can get it from the back side, it would be better because we're going to send the bolt through this front. You can access it on this side, use another pick. We'll just use a straight pick. That's good. Now we just need the bolt. Have the bolt, just wiggle this around. There we go. Just get the bolts started just a little bit easier and this is going to come down a little. There we go, got the bolt in. At this point, I can lower this.

To actually torque this bolt what you want to do is have the suspension where it would be normally. They recommend putting the tire on and tightening that down now, but it's obviously very difficult, so we're just going to torque it in this position. Take the nut, get the nut started. So we're going to use a 17 millimeter wrench and a 17 millimeter socket and a torque wrench and I'm going to torque this bolt to 66 foot pounds and it's recommended you torque the bolt side and not the nuts side on this vehicle. Normally you torque the nut side. That's good.

Alright, now I can lower the rear suspension. Alright, take the ABS sensor or wheel speed sensor. Just slide that bracket in there like that, this bracket goes down here and then you want to feed this wire through here. Just like that. That bracket is going to go like this. Now before we install that into the knuckle we'll put the nuts on.

Get that one started, get this one started, and the last one. This goes on the back side of this arm right here. Take a 10 millimeter socket and ratchet and just snug these up. Now take the sensor side and slide it in position on the knuckle. Take the bolt, get that started. Take a 10 millimeter socket and a ratchet and then tighten this down. Just snug it up. That's good.

Now we can take the lug nut off and put the wheel back on. Now slide the wheel on over the lug studs and put the lug nuts on. I'm just snugging these up loosely and then I'm going to lower the vehicle and use a torque wrench to torque these. Torque this using a 21 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm torquing this two 76 foot pounds in a star pattern. The reason I do it in a star pattern so that the wheel gets tightened down evenly. And I'll just go around again just to make sure and confirm everything's good.

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