Upper control arm removal issue 74 Trans Am
 

On my 74 Trans Am, I am trying to remove the upper control arm on the passenger side. I removed the lower arm, spindle, shock, and the 2 nuts on the two splined bolts that go thru the upper control arm.

The issue is I cant push the top of the control arm in far (toward the engine) enough to clear the frame bolts that hold the upper control on. I literally have interference against the engine trying to get the cross shaft to clear the bolts. Its close, but metal to metal. What am I missing here? I've done second gens before without an issue. It's like the upper bolts are extra long! Should I try to pry the bolts out?

Are the control arm bolts are oriented so that the bolt head is on the inboard side (in engine bay) and the nut is on the outboard side? If so, they are backwards and were likely installed when the engine or manifolds/headers were not in the car. If you don't have the clearance, I'd probably just cut them and install new bolts in the correct orientation.

If they are not in backwards, do you have enough room to tap the bolts out of the frame? Maybe get creative with a pry bar if no room for a hammer?

Should be able to tap the bolts out without much force, they are serrated & just a light press fit into the fame tower, might be a little rusty but should come out with a few taps of a hammer.

I have seen these bolts be a lot longer than they need to be, if you have enough bolt length for the alignment shims, you can cut the bolts to be a little shorter.

As he said tap them out some past the knurling.

I recently had that problem on the driver side on my gto. Passenger side was close but I was able to get control arm off before running into the engine. Driver side wouldn’t quite clear. I took a sawzall and trimmed a small amount off the end of the bolts so I could sneak the control arm out. I couldn’t see any way of tapping the bolts out with the engine in the way. Trimming worked just fine. I think I only removed maybe 1/8th inch.

I just did this on both sides of my 75. I ran the nuts to the end of the bolts and tapped the the nuts with a 3 lb sledge turned side ways. Not much of a swing, but enough to knock out the bolts relatively easily.

Or, you can remove the motor mount bolts, raise the engine up and have plenty of room to remove the upper A arms. More than one way to get a job done.

Knocking the bolts out of the serrations may get you into a situation that the bolts will only stay in place by tack welding them back into the frame mounts. Having run a front end alignment rack you really don't want the bolts spinning in the mounts if you're trying to tighten them back down.

Thanks all, I was able to get a long pry bar in from underneath and pry the bolt back past the knurling. Thanks for all the ideas!