Hello everyone,
I am having an issue with the control arms on my 2005 Chrysler Town and Country. I recently installed brand new control arms (with ball joints included). The problem that I am having is that when I let the van down off the jacks, the control arms pivot downward at the ball joints (which is normal) but the rear bushings are also turning inside the housings. What this basically does is it un-seats the rear bushing in its housing and turns it. The question I have is, shouldn't the rubber part of that rear bushing allow the inner part of the bushing to rotate on the shaft of the control arm when letting the van down off of the jacks without the rubber bushing unseating itself in the housing? To clarify a little bit more, imagine that you are standing underneath the front of the van facing the rear bushings of the control arms. When the van is up on jacks, the rear bushings are seated correctly with the center of the bushing at 12 o' clock in its housing. But when the van is let down off of the jacks, (and the outer part of the control arm pivots downward), the bushing turns, so that the passenger side is at 10 o' clock, and the driver side is ar 2 o' clock. This should not be. As a result, I have clunking underneath the van. FYI.......I ordered these new control arms from RockAuto. I wanted to go with the Delphi control arms, and they only had the left side in stock. So one side is Delphi and the other side is AC Delco. I'm actually glad that I got two different brands, because it rules out wrong or defective control arms.

Any help that you can give me is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,,
Mike

 

Did you check to make sure that the front arm bushing did not break the mounting tab of the crossmember? It's aluminium and I've heard of it breaking and this will cause slippage you describe when weight is put on the ground.
AND they don't pivot DOWN at the ball joint under ground load, they pivot UP.

 

Thanks for the reply. Please re-read my initial post. I made no mention of the front bushing nor would the front bushings have anything to do with the rear bushing. And I know how the control arm work when the vehicle is on the ground and being driven. That is also irrelevant to my post, and that's not the issue at all.