Replacing both front control arms. Tips?

[UrUnclePee-Air]

So during the home part if the road trip from Michigan, the tercel has developed a wobble on the driver's side, brought it into a shop and they assured me it was the control arm and I could limp it home as they didn't have the part. I found Moog control arms for around 60 bucks a whack, I figured I might as well replace the both of them. Is there anything else I should check out and replace while I'm at it? Any parts that usually wear down around this point? Previous owner just rebuilt the motor, transmission, and driveline. He also redid the brakes and installed a new transaxle. The old silver bullet has 273k on it.

[rer233]

What's wrong with your control arms? Inner bushings? If so, you can press 'em out and press in new ones. Rock Auto has 'em for like $12 each.

Good Luck!

[ARCHINSTL]

See this link, and in particular, my post with pix on page 2:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7140&hilit=+control+arm+
Tom M.

[UrUnclePee-Air]

You fellas rule!

[Petros]

I want to know what he was calling "control arm". there should be no hard part that needs to be replaced, it has to be bad bushings, the question is which one?

You could have worn ball joints, worn tie rod ends, worn inner lower arm bushing, or worn sway bar end bushing. None cost very much, the inner lower arm bush is somewhat troublesome to replace, but most are fairly easy replacement (an hour or so worth of work).

You need to find out exactly what the problem is before you can fix it. There is almost no way it is a bad control arm, if by that he meant the lower lateral arm, it is nearly impossible to damage (it is solid forged steel), but the bushings do go bad.

Always properly diagnose the problem BEFORE you try and fix it.