Yes they leak a purple goo when they are leaking.

Lower control arms going out is common. You should hear it going over bumps and stuff. It becomes more noticable the worse the joints get.

It may not always do it when you think. You may hear it at the beginning of braking, but as weight transfers, it would often be quiet. If you want to check for yourself, you can jack up the front wheel and wiggle the wheel and you should be able to see or feela little play.

Replacing isn't too bad depending on your confort level with working on things and whether its a seized up due to salty conditions. Its def not everyone's cup of tea though. You can do a search on replacing control arms and see whats involved.

 

Yeah ive done my uppers and one of the pinch bolts was a bitch.. Im trying to figure out what all needs to be taken off to get to the bad arm.. Its the left one that faces the rear (its the one pointing down), some have said the lowers are even harder to do than the uppers and i do remeber we were trying to get this arm off when we were doing the uppers (cant remeber why), and we tried putting the whole weight of the car on it and it wouldnt budge so i dont know how im gonna get it out (haha maybe thats why this one is bad).

Will i need to take the uppers out to pull the shock mount or is it all do able without having to disconnect anything but the sway bar link? And any other ideas on howta free the arm?

 

Ah boy its been awhile for me. Man, if you can get past the pinch bolt, you should be fine with the lowers. It presents its own problems, but for me, the two pinch bolts took longer than the whole rest of the project combined. As I remember, I had a small problem with getting the subframe low enough on one side, and the joints were tough to get out of the knuckle, but I eventually got it. With my car though, I ended up cutting a lot of ball joint studs with a hacksaw because everything was just too salted up and everything kept seizing.

Anywho, I don't think you will have to touch the uppers. You need to pop the subframe and the joint out of the knuckle, the sway bar link, and I think the shock is on the front one maybe, but whatever, you would pop that too if its connected to the arm you are replacing. You know to have a ball joint puller and spraying it down a night or two before with some release agent will help. Also, a mini sledge can do wonders sometimes. Stay patient and you should be good to go. Have fun.

 

Alright, well thanks for your help, hopefully i wont hafta hacksaw it but i will soak it before i attempt anything... im also gonna see what the cost might be to have someone else do it, although ill prolly end up doing it myself to save money, its just tempting to avoid sucha hassle.