LR3 maintenance

[88Hillman]

We bought a 2007 LR3 about a year ago and the only things I've done far are fluids. The brakes need to be done, the winch solenoid should be relocated and there is a clunk from the suspension.

My thoughts were to do the brakes and install some control arms with pre-installed bushes and ball joints.  I would suspect the bushes are all original.  The question is whether one should get it on a lift and feel for play on each one our just replace the works (expensive).  By the sounds of it the lower arms tend to go first most often, but I could be mistaken.  Any thoughts or advice?

Cheers,
Kirk

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[Matt H]

You don't need a vehicle lift Kirk. Just jack the vehicle weight off the suspension member in question as much as you can. Then with a suitable pry bar give the suspected joint a good shove. If it moves outside of is "normal" deflection then it's no good. It's ok to switch positions of the jack to narrow it down just be careful that when you are under there prying it doesn't slip off. You don't need it a mile in the sky, just an inch or so.

Lower control arms are common wear items on these units. I changed them out myself but unless you have a 20 ton press or a lot of patience I wouldn't recommend it. It's a pain in the proverbial...

You can buy the control arms with bushing pre fitted or just buy the bushings, take the control arms off yourself and take them to a garage/machine shop to get them replaced. Depending on the mileage I would replace all of the bushings, ball joints and sway bar links/bushings if I were you. Once one fails it tends to beat the other components up and they won't be far behind. Not the sort of job I would like to repeat every other month trying to chase new clunks. Also then everything is tight and new and wears at the same rate. Then you can get an alignment and be good to go for the foreseeable future.

If you have the EAS use the factory rubber bushings for sure. They are a special compound with some kind of elastermere fluid that allows proper extension of the air bags. I wouldn't recommend the Polly bush bushings, I fitted them on ours several years back and it kinda ruined the ride.

Be aware that you will not be able to torque the rear control arms to spec without removing the body. There is no room to fit a regular torque wrench. You can just about get a an open end spanner in there and give it the good old FT setting but that's about it. There is not much more room at the front either. The packaging on modern Land Rovers is extraordinarily tight.

[SpeedyJ]

Hi Kirk,

I did the front control arms on the floor of my very small single car garage. I was on a budget, so I went with replacement control arms from NAPA, I think I paid ~$300 a side after my discount for the 'premium' grade. I was expecting the worst - seized cam bolts, but they ended up coming out without much drama. However, the consensus on the disco3 forum was that in all likelihood you'll be cutting them out. My truck is an '09, I did the work two years ago when it had 116k kms on it. I did the inner/outer tie rods at the same time. I spent 3 hours on the first side figuring it out as I went along, the second side was a little more then an hour. Obviously it makes sense to do the breaks at the same time. Check your wheel bearings while you're in there, mine went bad 10k kms later, I replaced it with a Timkin (OE) from Rock Auto for ~$200 vs the $300+ NAPA wanted.

More recently, I did the lower control arms on my 2007 Tacoma (260k kms), the cam bolts where so seized that I did have to resort to cutting them out. Afterwards, I tried to push the remains of the cam bolts out of the bushings with a 20ton shop press, but they wouldn't budge. I was pretty happy that I hadn't spent significant time trying to get them out.

I still have the OEM LR3 lower control arms, if you're interested, you can have them and press new bushings and ball joints into them ahead of time to avoid down time.

Cheers

Jeff

[88Hillman]

Thanks Matt and Jeff, for the information. 

I've already ordered all the parts for front, rear and parking brakes in addition to new front lower control arms with installed bushings.  Had I known already about the possibility of using your OEM parts, Jeff, I might have considered it but the decision is already behind me.

This way I also get the HD Meyle joints as well.  When I have a chance I'll pull the wheels to take a closer look at the tie rods and hubs.  I've had no indication of issues with either of these being an issue but it would certainly be easier while everything is already apart.

I imagine that it someone goes in for an alignment prior to changing all these bits out it would get very expensive assuming the cam bolts are seized.

Cheers,
Kirk