Control arm

[JoDan]

Well, I just replace the control arms on my car and when I took it out for a test drive the car was just jumping all over the place. The steering and everything seemed fine while not moving but once I get going the car is hard to control, so I messed up somewhere. It feels like when my swaybar bushings where bad but like 10x worse. I'm going to take it to the shop tomorrow but I was just posting to see what you guys thought so I could have a place to start tomorrow when I look at it.

Thanks

[drddan]

Sounds like the "toe-in" is badly out of wack. That is how the front wheels are aligned straight with the body. If that is out, wheels have tendancy to want to walk away from, or towards each other and will go to a point that they have to "jump" back to where they should be. Does it wander, left and right, or pull to one side badly?

[Zanzer]

Did you replace the end link bushings that go through the control arms too? When I did my CA's I used the blue poly Moog ones and it really seemed to help.

[JoDan]

Sounds like the "toe-in" is badly out of wack. That is how the front wheels are aligned straight with the body. If that is out, wheels have tendancy to want to walk away from, or towards each other and will go to a point that they have to "jump" back to where they should be. Does it wander, left and right, or pull to one side badly?

It wanders and pulls to the left.

[drddan]

If you just replaced the arms, it will be sitting different and will need wheel alignment
If its real bad, like you can see that its out, you can adjust them by eyesight by adjusting the tie rods til its somewhat straight to get you to the alignment shop.

[Fordverde]

Change the tie ends now that you're there. That way you can forget about it for a while.

[ejp2fast]

i second the toe issue..... get that taken care of and you'll likely be ok.
just to confirm- you didn't have any extra bolts when you were done right?

[WmWatt]

Check the pinch bolts are tight. One of mine was a bit loose and the pin was moving.