Stearing Arm

[Leroy1]

Hello Everyone,

I've started the task of changing out the stock steering arm on my 83 4X4 GMC to a Lift arm. Who ever put the lift on before I bought it never changed the arm. Does any one have any tips to getting those cone washers out in order to get the arm off? All I have heard of so far is beat the heck out of it.

Kalan

[Zoomad75]

You do need to use a BFH, but it should not take hours of hammering on it to get it loose. The trick is not to use your hammer to swing up and hit the bottom side of the arm. Your working against the cone washers this way and you will wear out your arm. Take a pickle fork and pop the tie rod on the draglink at the arm. Once the tie rod is out of the way use your hammer to strike in a downward motion on the curve just to the front of the tie rod hole. By hitting down in this area, the arm wants to pivot the other side up since the knuckle is acting like a fulcrum or pivot point. That and the vibration will get the con washers to start backing out. Once the cone washer is out far enough, you can use a pair of pliers to "unscrew" it out of the hole. This is the way we got the original arm off of my axle that had 30 years of grime/rust on it. We had the old one off in 15 minutes.

I've seen people beat on them for hours trying to hit up at the arm. Because you cant get a direct shot up close to the studs, the arm won't go straight up as you hit it, it will move slightly diagnonally and jam the first cone washer into the stud. It won't budge.

Just be sure to use pleanty of penetrating oil on the studs before hand. Hose them down a few times for a couple of days before you get to work.

Remember you don't have to hit it to the point that the studs pop out on thier own, just enough so you can grab them with some pliers and back them out.