I am in the process of replacing the upper control arms on my A4.
Removing the pinch bolt gave me a lot of trouble but eventually I was able to remove. Now.., believe it or not I am having trouble removing the control arms from the knuckle. Is there some kind of a tool that would make my life easier? One post/thread was pointing to a tool similar with the one in the picture but I don’t see how it would help in this case. There is nothing to push on for separating the ball joint…


Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks a lot!

 

Pickle fok may work if you are tossing the ball joint. You also need to completely remove the bolt you have the wrench on, otherwise the joints will never come off without damaging the control arm. You will see why after you remove them.

 

The bolt you are mentioning was removed. I will try the pickle fork since I don't care much about damaging the ball joint or the control arm. The plan is to replace them with new ones (already purchased).
Will the new control arms go in easily? To tell you the truth I am a little nervous about installing everything back since the removal process is a hassle.
I did watch some videos but they omit to mention some of these things. Everything seemed so easy to do in the video. Are there any other tips and tricks that you know of?
Thanks!

 

what year is yours? My upper control arm lock bolt in the spindle is seized, tried everything and eventually the bolt broke off

 

Most suspension bolts get rusted in really good. The best way to losen them up is to spray them with penetrating lube a few days before working on them. A impact wrench is usually better than a breaker bar as it can get the bolts loose without applying constant force which is more prone to break them.

 

I used a lot of penetrating oil which I am not sure if it helped at all….I used a torch and eventually it worked after many attempts. The bolt would start moving and as soon as the metal cooled off it would freeze again and I will have to start all over…
I am planning to continue my project this coming weekend and I will apply penetrating oil every day, I am curious if it’s going to make a difference.
I don’t have an impact wrench but I do believe that it might have worked better than the regular wrench that I used.

 

Yep, the impact wrench does a good job af vibrating the rusted pieces apartwithout breaking them. lol