How to Replace Upper Control Arm 2003-07 Honda Accord
Created on: 2019-06-20
Watch this video to learn how you can replace the upper control arm on your 03-07 Honda Accord. Save money and do it yourself with help from 1A Auto!
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step 1 :Removing the Wheel
- Partially raise the vehicle with the wheel still contacting the ground
- Loosen the 19 mm lug nuts
- Raise and support the vehicle on jack stands
- Remove the lug nuts
- Replace one lug nut loosely
- Hammer the tire from the back side if the wheel is stuck
- Remove the last lug nut and the wheel
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step 2 :Removing the Strut
- Remove the 14 mm lower strut bolt
- Remove the 17 mm nut from the 17 mm wishbone bolt and remove the bolt
- Remove the wishbone from the bottom of the strut
- Remove the three 14 mm and two 12 mm nuts from the top strut mount
- Remove the strut from the top mount
- The strut will be fully removed in the next step
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step 3 :Removing the Upper Control Arm
- Remove the upper control arm cotter pin
- Remove the 17 mm upper control arm castle nut
- Hit the upper knuckle to release the ball joint stud
- Remove the 10 mm nut securing the ABS wire bracket to the upper control arm
- Move the knuckle forward to remove the strut
- Remove the two 14 mm inner upper control arm bolts
- Remove the upper control arm
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step 4 :Installing the Strut
- Insert the upper control arm bushings into place
- Install the two inner 14 mm bolts
- Using the provided guides on the body, raise the upper control arm to the loaded position
- Torque the 14 mm bolts to 23 ft-lb
- Insert the strut top mounting studs into position
- Install the three 14 mm top mount nuts and the two 12 mm nuts
- Torque the three 14 mm nuts to 37 ft-lb
- Torque the two 12 mm nuts to 16 ft-lb
- Insert the lower strut into the wishbone
- Install the 14 mm lower strut bolt
- Torque the 14 mm lower strut bolt to 32 ft-lb
- Align the wishbone with the lower control arm
- Install the 17 mm bolt and tighten the 17 mm nut onto it
- Torque the 17 mm wishbone bolt to 47 ft-lb
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step 5 :Installing the Lower Control Arm
- Remove the upper control arm ball joint cover
- Insert the upper control arm ball joint into the knuckle
- Install the ball joint castle nut
- Torque the ball joint castle nut to 35 ft-lb
- Continue tightening to align the castle nut with the cotter pin hole in the stud
- Install the new cotter pin
- Install the ABS wire bracket onto the upper control arm
- Install the 10mm nut securing the bracket
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step 6 :Installing the Wheel
- Slide the wheel onto the lug nuts
- Replace the lug nuts and tighten them in a star pattern
- Lower the vehicle with the wheel lightly touching the ground
- Torque the lug nuts in a star pattern to 80 ft-lbs
- Lower the vehicle completely
Tools needed
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12mm Socket
Socket Extensions
Torque Wrench
14mm Socket
15mm Socket
17mm Wrench
17mm Socket
Jack Stands
19mm Socket
Ratchet
Floor Jack
1/2 Inch Breaker Bar
Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.
Hey everyone, Sue here from 1A Auto, and today we have an '07 Honda Accord in the shop, and we're going to be showing you how to remove and replace the upper control arms in the front with the ball joint. If you need this part, or any other part for your car, click on the link below and head on over to 1aauto.com.
19 millimeter socket to loosen up the lug nuts. Now I'm going to raise and support my vehicle with my two post lift, and you can use the jack stands with a jack. And now we're clear to remove the tire. 14 millimeter socket, I'm going to take the lower strut bolt out. Make sure you pre-spray to help yourself for a smoother job. The threads on this go through the wishbone, there is not a nut on the other side. The pinch bolt has to come all the way out, because the actual strut itself has a indent in it for where the bolt line up through the wishbone. So don't think you're going to cheat it, and loosen it up and see if you can slide this out, you won't be able to. 17 millimeter wrench, and 17 millimeter socket, and we're going to take the wishbone bolt out. Just take a hammer and tap it out.
So now I'm going to remove the wishbone from the bottom part of the strut. Perfect. Now we can lower our vehicle and undo the top of the strut bolts, and slide her out. Now, we've lowered our car so we can access the top of the strut. There are three 14 millimeter socket style nuts, and two 12 millimeter socket nuts. These do have to come out. Our new strut from 1A Auto comes with the actual all five nuts, so we don't have to reuse the old ones. I'm going to leave that one on, because now the strut's going to want to drop down. That's the great thing about this being at this height now, I can reach in with one hand and hold the strut, and take this top one off. Take the last nut out.
Now you can see that there's no arch room to get this strut out, so at this point I'm going to strongly suggest we undo the top nut to the control arm, just to make your life a little easier.
Removing the upper control arm ball joint castle nut, I've got to discard the old cotter pin. Let's see if she can come out without breaking. Beautiful. I'm going to discard that because we get a new one. 17 millimeter socket, and we're going to take off the upper control arm castle nut. Now I'm going to hit this right here with a hammer, and that ball joint will pop right out of the knuckle. 10 millimeter socket will take this mounting bolt off the control arm, this little nut that holds the ABS wire on. I normally would have done that before, I just forgot. Now you can move the knuckle forward, and guide the strut out.
14 millimeter socket will take the two upper control arm bolts out. Nice, and that drops down, easier. Let's grab that upper control arm, and just slide it right out.
Here we have our new upper control arm for an '07 Honda Accord from 1A Auto. This is a beautiful control arm, it's got nice new bushings in it, they're pressed in. It comes with a ball joint, new castle nut and new cotter pin. And before you install it, you take the plastic protective shipment so it protects the boot, nice boot strapped on there down, locked in. It has all the same compartments as the OE. It comes with a mounting bolt for the ABS wire. Same exact style bushings. So if you need this part, or any other part for your car, click on the link below and head on over to 1aauto.com.
Let's put our new control arm in place, line up the bushings. Put the front bolt in. Move it around until it goes into place. I can see that I'm way off there, there we go. Let's get the back one in. I'm going to take advantage of it laying down like this, I'm just going to snug the bolts up to the housing. It's still a 14 millimeter socket. I don't want it too snug, because I need this to move ,so I can use the alignment pins and torque it down.
When installing the upper control arm on a Honda Accord, the manufacturer gives you these little inverted holes here, and that is so that you can torque the upper control arm in the loaded position. So with this punch in the space, I'm going to tighten both bolts to manufacturer specs, 23 foot pounds. This is why they have you remove the front strut, there's no way you could get in here and torque this, or let alone take the bolts out.
So I'm going to align the strut cap with the two bolts that go for that cross member bar, and then the cap studs themselves. So I can try to get this to go up in there through the front here. Now, I lowered it so that I can hopefully hold the strut and thread one of the bolts, this one. The new size of the socket for the new strut nuts is a 15 millimeter. We're going to snug these down, then we'll torque them to spec. And the two nuts that go on the little cross member bar is a 13 millimeter socket now. So the three strut mount nuts, the three identical ones, are 37 foot pounds. And the two cross member nuts, is 16 foot pounds.
Now we're going to reattach the wishbone on the lower strut. Make sure we line that up as best we can. Got to find that notch. The only problem with it, we might need a mirror so you can see that key way. The torque specs for this lower strut bolt into the wishbone, is 32 foot pounds. Now we have to take a pry bar, and we're just prying it into the wishbone like this, so that we can turn that lower part, so it lines up with the control arm. And now we can line that up for the bolt to go through. You might need to take a hammer and tap it, just give it a little fine tuning. I'm going to actually take my punch that I used, and see if I can do this. Let's see how far off from the side... We're off.
So I'll take the pry bar and twist it at the same time. There we go. 17 millimeter socket, and we're just going to snug that right down, then we'll torque it to the manufacturers specs. Okay, that's snug, now I'm going to get my torque wrench. The lower wishbone bolt that goes through the little control arm, is 47 foot pounds.
Now we're going to attach our upper control arm to the knuckle. Take the new castle nut out, discard the plastic cover. There we go. There we go. The upper castle nut for the control arm ball joint, is 35 foot pounds. Now, let's see, where the key way is right there for the actual cotter pin. This will also help me know if the stud is turning while I tighten this. No. A little bit more. So you can see I went past the torque, but that's because the cotter pin didn't line up with the hole, and you have to go tighten, never loosen, to get the cotter pin in. And here's the new cotter pin that came with the upper control arm. Slide that right into the designed hole. There we go.
So what's happening is the control arm is in the way of the length of the new cotter pin, so I'm just going to manipulate it down, that way I don't have to... There's only one hole on this ball joint, I would have to take the whole thing to turn the stud. There we go.
Last is the ABS bracket, it lines right up. There's a little mounting hole for the bracket. Let that guide sit right on there, that's a 10 millimeter socket. Tighten that down. Now we're ready to put our wheel back on. I'm just going to snug them up by hand, then I'll lower it down on the ground with the weight of the vehicle on it, and I'll torque the wheel to 80 foot pounds. 19 millimeter socket, and we're going to torque the wheel to 80 foot pounds in a star pattern. Double check. Now we're going to repeat the process on the other side.
Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1aauto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.
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