All my holiday vacation time was spent replacing all 4 bushings and ball joint boots on 100k mile 2005 CRV. It sure paid to have friends with machine shop equipment to press the old bushings out and new ones in. But it took me just one attempt to install the LCA to realize the larger bushing orientation is important. It seemed to be stressed a lot when I tried to pry the bushing top so it aligns with the weldnut in the subframe. So we pushed them out again, looked at some pix online and made our best guess of the proper alignment. The OEM bushing had a blue dot but there was nothing on the LCA to indicate specific orientation. I saw no manuals or forums that mentioned this important step. Guess I will eventually find out how it did. Cant be worse than the old ones that were completely separated. I didnt expect the front bushing to fail alignment at the top if I managed to get the bolt in at the bottom. I found no way to pry the top side of the bushing so I could get the bolt threads engaged.

The Haynes book showed diagrams of the ball joint locking/cotter pin alignment. You are supposed to point one of the ends toward the front. I torqued the castle nut to about 45 ft lb and tried to insert the pin but it didnt go in. So I kept torquing in 2 ftlb increments up to 52 until I found a free space for the pin through the nut. The problem was that I never found a ball joint hole that allowed the pin to be aligned like the diagram. I tried to orient it in general direction but was 60 - 90 degrees off what the diagram showed. Does it matter? Should I of separated the ball joint from the LCA and then reoriented the pin holes closer than what I wound up with?

How far can the left half shaft be pulled without it causing damage? The right LCA came out with relative ease but the left LCA gave me some trouble and it seemed that I pulled the knuckle too much to drop the LCA. I am afraid the left half shaft will prematurely fail but at 100k miles, it might be due anytime anyway. The Haynes manual did not state any other fasteners needed removal except the stabilizer, two bushing bolts, ball joint separated. I wonder if I should have removed the knuckle too.

 

The compliance of the bushing is critically important of macpherson strut suspensions. Failing to install this bushing correctly will cause the bushing to fail again, or cause undesirable suspension operation until the bushing tears.

Being able to tell the clocking of the bushing is fairly easy for most cars. The control arm deflection controls where the slots in the bushing should be located. It is not uncommon for me to see this type of problem (especially on PT Cruisers).

Follow the travel of the upper are and you can get it very close, some designs have a small mark on the arm or the bushing to determine where it needs to be installed.

Pulling the half shaft inner joint apart may or may not cause problems, depending on the way the toroids inside the joint are contained (if they are at all). Generally a small wiggle will reseat the toroids and all is well. However, if you lost the outer shell (which can be hard to tell sometimes) you will risk breaking the joint. Probing the boot by hand will generally reveal dislodged parts.

As long as you tighten to lower ball joint to spec, and then tighten only as far as you need to seat a cotter pin, you will be fine.

 

The only reason I could think the cotter pin orientation mattered was in case I drove through a wooded area and a branch or root pulled the pin out. Since the CRV was not designed for a lot of off-road driving, I rarely plan to go off-road anyway.

I drove the CRV for a week and didnt hear anything from the cv-joints so they should be okay. I think I heard some creaking noises from the front suspension, so I plan to recheck bolt torques soon. The noise repeated after a long time being parked and backing up to a stop. The alignment didnt seem to be affected at low or high speeds. I expected the car to pull in one direction or the other. Should I have the alignment checked anyway?