So I removed my knuckle in order to replace the wheel bearing and lower ball joint. While trying to separate the ball joint from the lower control arm it would not budge so I ended up just removing the whole lower control arm with knuckle still attached to get more room to swing a hammer to separate.

In the process I had to remove the radius rod from the LCA held on by two bolts. Everything went well until I had to reattach the radius rod. How hard is it to reattach it to the LCA because I am able to get one bolt in but the other is next to impossible. Do I have to loosen the nut where the rod attaches to the front cross member? I have a feeling it could be bent because years ago I slammed into a curb on that side while driving in the snow but I can't tell. Should it just bolt on with little effort in aligning the holes? For now I Just have one bolt holding it on because the second one won't go in without me stripping the threads and effing up the bolt.

 

If you actually removed the lower control arm then what you want to do is to attach the two bolts for the radius rod to the control arm then squeeze the control arm back into the frame and send through the through bolt.

In the future if you don't have the lower control arm removed it's best to remove the radius rod front bolt and then barely start each bolt a couple threads while really pushing the rod into the crossmember. It's not hard to strip the threads on those two bolts. Fortunately if you do, you can run the bolt from the bottom up through the lower control arm which will help to repair the threads. Then take it out and go back down again. It's not easy but it's manageable but only if you got the end bolt removed. You do really gotta push on the radius rod to get it straight enough to line up the threads so you don't strip them trying to tighten em. Just go a few threads at a time to start on each bolt until you got both bolts on.

Also, and this applies to anything that has two bolts or more, if you mess up the threads a little on one, you can use the good bolt for the stripped threads and move the slightly messed up bolt over to the other side with the good threads. I've done this a few times. Just make sure if you see you're messing up the threads that you stop and don't try to force it or you will mess up the threads beyond repair/use.

 

What I had to do was jack up the LCA to make sure the radius rod is completely level when reattaching it.

 

I tried that first but still couldn't get the LCA back into frame. It was just me working so I might call a friend over this weekend for some extra strength. I have an extra radius rod that I'm going to replace it with just in case so I'll end up removing the old one anyways so the front bolt will be out. When I hit the curb it seemed like the wheel sat farther back just slightly when compared to the other side. I inspected the LCA and it seemed fine and I couldn't really tell if the radius rod was damaged due to it having many curves already

I'll try this as I'm putting in a new one this weekend.

 

On my accord the driver side auto and manual uses the same radius rod, but the passenger side auto and manual have a different size so check and cross reference at hondapartscheap to see.

Also, if you can't get the lca into the frame after attaching the radius rod it could be bent or you could have some sort of frame damage. The radius rod, if not bent out of regular shape, will slope down in the middle then back up not the other way round.

 

I'll take a look at it and the ones I have in storage. Looked at the part numbers and they're both different for the left and right. Do you know the size of the nut that holds it to the front cross beam? I think I'll have to buy a deep socket for it

 

This worked for me, I also had the nut loosened on the adjustment end.

I compared the two rods I have and there doesn't seem to be any damage. I'm hoping it's not damaged in the frame and I still couldn't tell if it was the LCA. Ill probably just get another LCA from the u pull it just for the hell of it.

It pisses me off, I replaced the front wheel bearings. The left came out good, nice and solid, but the right is still loose. I think I may have effed up when pressing it into the knuckle.

If I get an alignment now will it mess it up if I replace that bearing later?