How hard to replace a beam

[Madracingalley]

So I went to the dealership today for an alignment (I do my own work otherwise) and They called me up telling me they can't align the caster/camber. I said, thats why I took it to you to align it!!!! So the service writer tells my to follow him to talk to the tech. the tech shows me my front drivers side beam is BENT!!!!!! So I need to get a beam, so my question is, How hard is it to replace a beam ?





post 333

 

[t0x1k]

Not hard at all.

1. Remove, the caliper, shock, sway bar and tie rod and set aside.
2. Use jack to support beam, position it under the bearing or rotor, let the beam sag and rest on jack.
3. Unbolt the nut from inside the coil, this is tough, use heat and a big 1 1/8" open end wrench to get it.
4. Once coil it free, now you will see the next nut under the coil and also the bolt head on bottom of beam. Get a big ass breaker bar on the bolt on bottom, using the open end on top. Again more heat, there's loctite on the bolts.
5. Once bolt is removed tug the beam out of radius arm.
6. Bust loose the drop bracket bolt, and beam will drop onto ground.

Now you can either replace the beam and knuckle with a junkyard, or remove the knuckle from current beam and switch it over.
Replace your ball joints while you're at it.

Install is reverse, torque everything down good, it's mostly all 80-120 ft/lbs for the big bolts.



A bent beam is odd tho, does it sag on that side? Does the tire sit forward or back in the wheel well? Those beams are cast and tough, you might have a bad radius arm bushing or something.

 

[Madracingalley]

I t should be easier since I just replaced the ball joint, the springs and other odds and ends... I should have noticed this before...... The weird thing is that tha Beam is bent but the radius arm is not!