If the front passenger side upper control arm on your 2004 and newer F-150 has seen
better days, well then, you might want to consider an affordable replacement from the
gang here at OPR.
Now, the stock replacement from OPR will feature a burly steel build complete with a brand
new greaseable ball joint and two new bushings on the frame side to basically completely
overhaul the right side upper on your rig.
Now, your price point is gonna land you somewhere in the $80 to $90 range and the install itself
will get a middle of the road two out of three wrenches on the difficult to meter here, take
you a couple of hours to complete from start to finish.
But, you hang out with me for a little bit, guys, we'll show you how it's done later in
the video.
So this is a rather simple product here and again, guys, it will be for those 2004 and
newer two and four-wheel-drive F-150 owners who are in need of an affordable factory replacement
control arm.
And how do you know if you need to replace it?
Well, could be a number of things including noise coming from the front end, a rough ride
or poor handling, or even the truck not aligning properly.
Now, the culprit more than likely is going to be the ball joint itself, but sometimes
those rubber bushings here on the frame side tend to deteriorate over time and can lead
to issues as well.
Now, if you've isolated the issue or the noise down to the upper control arm here, then you
do have to replace the entire arm itself as the ball joint up here is not replaceable
on the factory arm.
So, therefore, again, complete replacement is in order, and that's where the gang at
OPR comes into play.
They do make a wide variety of factory replacement parts out there, such as this of course, and
a lot of it is pretty affordable overall.
Keep in mind here, guys, we are talking about the right side or passenger side in this video.
We do also offer OPRs driver side as well, you can find it here on the site if you're
looking to knock both out at the same time.
And both are gonna cost roughly in that same $80 to $90 price point.
Now, from a construction standpoint, there isn't a ton of talk about here, but let's
cover what we can, and again, your centerpiece is gonna be the burly steel build painted
black to help you prevent any corrosion long term.
Now, on the knuckle side, you do have a brand new ball joint here, which is grease-able
by the way.
It does have a little jerk fitting here on the end, that's really nice to point out it's
gonna prolong the life of the ball joint itself and something that isn't included on the factory
arm.
Now, on the frame or body side over here, two brand new bushings complete with sleeves
already pressed in and ready to go.
So, this whole arm is essentially ready to be installed without the need for anything
else.
Now, I have seen a few questions about adding the OPR arm and possibly gaining some extra
clearance in the event of a lift or leveling kit is installed.
And what you have to keep in mind here guys is that this is essentially a factory replacement
and not a performance-oriented part.
So, and the extra clearance you do gain would simply be coincidental and not by design.
However, if you are looking for something a little bit more performance-oriented, there
are a number of upper control arms here on the site that you can check out as well.
But now we wanna show you just what it takes to get everything installed on your rig at
home.
And keep in mind, guys, this is a pretty large year range.
So, some of those earlier trucks who have seen a lot of Northeast winters you might
be seeing a lot more rust.
On the other hand, California or Florida based trucks that are slightly newer, probably gonna
be a lot easier for you.
Either way, here's that detailed walkthrough we promised you earlier, in addition to a
quick tool breakdown.
Man: The tools required for this install are an automotive floor jack, a half-inch torque
wrench, a three-eighths torque wrench, an 18-millimeter ratcheting wrench, 21-millimeter
wrench, 18-millimeter wrench, 10-millimeter wrench, an 8-millimeter wrench, a 27-millimeter
socket on a half-inch drive, a 21-millimeter socket half-inch drive, 18-millimeter socket
half-inch drive, an 18-millimeter socket 3/8 drive, a 13-millimeter 3/8 drive, 13-millimeter
quarter-inch drive, 10-millimeter quarter-inch drive, 8-millimeter quarter-inch drive, a
pry bar, a handheld vacuum pump, a dead blow hammer, a half-inch impact gun, a 3/8 power
ratchet, and a quarter-inch impact gun.
Today we're working on the driver side, but if you're working on the passenger side the
installation will be exactly the same process.
All right.
So we're gonna get started by just getting our vehicle up in the air, supported with
the front wheels off the ground and remove our front wheels to get access to our suspension.
Next, I'm gonna unbolt my ABS line and my brake line off of my knuckle so that I can
get ready to remove the entire knuckle assembly.
After that, I'll put my caliper and rotor.
All right.
With my two lines unbolted, I can now unbolt my caliper and hang that out of my way to
remove my rotor.
So, you don't have to do this, but I like to remove my dust shield off from behind the
rotor just so that when I remove this entire assembly I don't damage my dust shield in
the process.
With everything out of my way, now I'm gonna use a 5-millimeter Allen socket to remove
my ABS wheel speed sensor from the hub.
Now, using a 21-millimeter socket, I'm going to disconnect the outer tire rod.
Now, I'm gonna remove the cap for my axle nut.
I'm gonna do this with a flathead screwdriver and a hammer.
Be very careful not to damage the cap as you will be reusing it later.
All right.
Now, with a 21-millimeter socket, once again, I'm gonna loosen up the nut for the lower
ball joint, but I'm not gonna remove it completely.
Now I'm using the 18-millimeter wrench to loosen up my upper ball joint.
Don't be surprised if you see the studs start to spin, you can use an 8-millimeter wrench
to hold the bottom of the stud while you loosen up the nut.
Now I'm just gonna keep a little bit of pressure on the top of the upper control arm while
I disconnect the upper ball joint.
Now, using a 13-millimeter socket, I'm going to remove the axle nut out here on the outer
hub, followed by the vacuum line on the back of the hub.
All right.
So, now, using a handheld vacuum-actuated pump, I'm going to apply 24-inches of vacuum
to the large port on the back of the four-wheel-drive axle hub.
This is done to disengage the axle splines on the four-wheel-drive IWE.
All right.
So, since our truck already has a small lift kit installed, I'm gonna use a floor jack
to raise the lower control arm so that I can straighten out my axle angle so that I can
more easily remove my outer hub assembly without damaging the IWE assembly.
I wanna make sure that I lift the lower control arm slowly so that I give the spring and the
shock time to recoil.
Make sure to be very careful so that you don't damage the diaphragm on the IWE and remove
your entire hub.
Now I'm gonna use an 18-millimeter socket to remove my sway bar end link.
This is gonna be done so that I can get my lower control arm to lower down far enough
to remove my strut assembly.
Once again, with an 18-millimeter, I'm gonna remove my two lower strut nuts, this will
allow me to lower my lower control arm down.
All right.
So our lower control arm isn't moving out of the way as nicely as I'd like it to, so
I'm gonna use a 21-millimeter wrench and a 27-millimeter socket on an impact gun to loosen
up the bolts just enough to get my lower control arm to swing down freely.
Now, this is gonna mess up your alignment angle but that really isn't gonna matter as
the upper control arm is also going to mess up your alignment angle and you're gonna need
an alignment when you're finished anyway.
All right, as I said before, our truck already has a small lift kit installed onto it, you
can see that there's a small spacer in here.
Usually, there would be three studs sticking up out of the top with an 18-millimeter nut.
I'm gonna be using an 8-millimeter Allen socket to get our three bolts out, but you would
use an 18-millimeter wrench at home.
With our upper strut hardware removed, you can remove the entire strut assembly to get
access to your upper control arm bolts.
Now we finally have everything out of the way, we can start pulling our upper control
arm out, we're gonna use a 21-millimeter wrench and an 18-millimeter socket with a ratchet
to remove the two upper bolts.
Now we can install our new upper control arm.
I'm just gonna snug them so that I can torque them.
Now that I have the upper control arm installed with the bolts, I can torque them to 122-foot
pounds.
With our new upper control arm installed, now we can start putting our vehicle back
together.
First step is gonna be put the strut assembly back in the vehicle.
Now we've got these tight, we're gonna lift our lower control arm back into place, get
our nuts started on our struts to get everything squeeze situated.
And then we're gonna start putting our knuckle assembly back in.
And now we can throw the nuts back on for the bottom of the strut assembly.
Once again, with a 27-millimeter socket and 21-millimeter wrench, we're gonna snug up
the bolts for the lower control arm.
And now we can tighten up the nut for the sway bar end link on the lower control arm.
Now, once again, with 24-inches of vacuum applied to my handheld vacuum pump connected
to my IWE actuator, I'm going to very carefully reinstall the knuckle assembly simultaneously
lining up my lower ball joint with the axle itself.
Once I have my lower ball joint through the bottom, get the nut started to hold everything
in place while I align the axle up finally with the hub.
Now that I have the axle fully through the IWE hub, I'm just going to lightly tighten
it up before I torque it down later.
And now I can release my vacuum.
A good way to check that you've done it properly is that when you disengage the vacuum the
axle does not spin freely.
With the help of a pry bar, I'm gonna push down on my upper control arm until I can see
the threads coming out of the upper tie rod end or upper ball joint nut hole, and then
I'm gonna get the nut started by hand.
Now I'm gonna use a 21-millimeter ratcheting wrench to tighten down my upper ball joint
nut.
Once again not uncommon for this to spin, just get another wrench to hold this in place.
And now you can reconnect your outer tie rod end.
Now that your entire hub assembly is in place and your axle is securely through the IWE,
you can tighten up your lower ball joint.
Now we can reconnect our vacuum ports and reinstall our ABS line.
Next, we can reinstall our previously removed dust shield before we re-install our caliper
and rotor.
Now we can reinstall our caliper before we reconnect our lines to our knuckle.
Now I'm gonna snug up my caliper bolts with a 21-millimeter socket before I torque them
to 184 foot pounds.
Finally, we can reinstall our ABS line bolts and our brake line bolts.
Before reinstalling your dust cap make sure to torque your axle nut to 35 foot pounds.
I use a pry bar in between the lug studs and then put my torque wrench on and click it
to 35.
Reinstall your dust cap and you're ready to go.
Once you've got your dust cap reinstalled and everything torqued to spec, throw your
wheel on, take it up to an alignment shop and get a solid alignment done.
That'll do it for my install of the OPR Front Upper Control Arm and Ball Joint Assembly.
And for all things F-150 keep it right here at americantrucks.com.