So I posted a while ago about my car feeling unstable over bumps/turns at freeway speed, and also about my front camber. One member noticed right away my lower control arm was off (good eye), but I was shocked at what I found today.

I finally got time to properly diagnose the front end issues and found a few things, some I knew about already, but one was ridiculous.

-Bad drivers side front wheel bearing
-Bad DS lower control arm bushing
-Passenger side lower control arm may be bad also.. its moved way to the side (where the bushing sits)

I recently changed my upper control arm and ball joint on the passenger side with a new one from autozone. When I got the old one out, I compared the two and they were identical,, except for on the ball joint area where the bolt comes out and is supposed to sit in the spindle, the new part was missing this metal cone shaped piece that the stock one had built into it. I was reassured it was the correct part so i put it on. It seemed ok, but a little loose right off the bat.

Few weeks later, and my upper control arm/ball joint looks like this... smh. Don't mind my cursing I was sending the video to my fiance lol.

http://imgur.com/a/2AHfgof

Sooo yeah thats great 👍 .

Does anyone know which part they may have given me by mistake or which part I actually need? Is there a different part for sport suspension and non sport or something? Wondering why this new control arm did not have the cone shaped metal piece that clearly keeps it sitting tight in the spindle....

 

You're supposed to save the cone bushing off your old ball joint, most new ball joints don't come with one.

Sometimes they get jammed onto the old BJ and you have to use a separator fork or a puller to get them off.

Nissan part number 40173-AL500 for the upper if you don't have your old ball joints.

 

See and tht occurred to me when I took the old one off, but it was so fused into the old ball joint I thought it was a part of it. Would not separate for anything. God bless it....

thank you for the help. Going to have to get that cone piece now...

 

Yeah those things can be practically welded onto the ball joint sometimes, I usually try to just grab new ones if it's a size I don't already have in the shop just in case they won't pop off with my shop press, if you DO have a 12ton press or something like that you can pinch under the cone with a big bearing splitter and press right onto the stud of the ball joint and USUALLY get them off. Put a bunch of pressure on it with the press and then use a brass drift and hammer the cone itself. Sometimes even using this method they still won't come off though.

 

There's basically 3 of those cones, or BALL JOINT SEAT, in the front of these cars.

The upper control arm is p/n: 40173-AL500
The compression rod is p/n: 40173-33P00
The lower control arm (main ball-joint) is p/n: 40173-AC500

Most aftermarket arms do NOT come with those cones. Only one you might get lucky with is ball joints may come with the cone included.