Am I able to put the old one back on with no issues? I’m not happy with this one, after installing I now have a constant rapid bump noise coming from that area of the vehicle.

My original OEM one wasn’t in dire need of replacement, it’s got 138k on it and susprisingly the rubber seals around the ball joint were still ok, the only thing that was slightly bad was the bushings on both ends, but the ball joint itself seemed to still be good and didn’t have much play

can I throw the old one back on with a new castle nut and cotter pin and call it a day?

 

Are the bushings on the original control arm causing any issues? Does the original ball joint have any play?

 

The original ball joint has a slight amount of play, nothing extreme though. I’m not sure if the bushings are causing issues, I don’t know how to tell.

I put the old OEM part back on today and my car feels significantly worse. I now have a rapid knocking/popping noise and feeling coming from the suspension. Any ideas?

 

The upper control arm is straightforward to install. My guess is you tightened the bushings in the back with the suspension hanging. That loads the bushings to push the control arm down and probably why you have some noise.

A safer way is to loosen the bushing bolts with the tire on the hub and the car on the ground. Allow the bushing to be in the resting position, then tighten the bushing. Depending on your tools, you may or may not have room to do this.

Alternatively, you need to loosen the bolts through the upper bushings with the tire off and the car on jackstands. Put a jack under the lower control arm (near the ball joint) then push up the suspension until the car slightly lifts off the jack stands. Then you tighten the bushing bolts, so they are at the resting position when the suspension is at normal height.

 

I figured it out, and I’m quite embarrassed to say what it was… I had loosened the lug nuts on both front wheels, as I was anticipating getting to both sides that day… I only managed to get the drivers side done, and when I put the car down and tightened the drivers side lug nuts I completely forgot that I had loosened the passenger side and didn’t tighten them…

thank god nothing catastrophic happened, I only drove for about three minutes with them loose like that. I remounted the wheel and tightened everything to spec and that noise is now gone

 

Oh wow. Glad you caught it in time. I remember not tightening my wheel lug nuts tight enough and I heard strange noises. I was smart enough to pull over and check everything over (I lost two wheel studs in a snow storm). Yeah, that would have been game over very quickly if you even made it to the highway.

Don't worry I had it happened 3 times that I did not tighten my lug nuts completely. Now I literally use my own body weight to tighten those lug nuts. This is always why I always take my time working on a job. I don't listen to what someone else tells me ever. They always say this is a 20 min job, this is a 30 min job. I don't care, I have the whole day off. I'm not a mechanic working a job were I have to get things done quickly (not saying that's what you did, but my own experience). And I always double check things after I'm done doing a job. I lift the car up and check to see if anything gotten loose.