Difficulty of replacing front LCA?

[K3Ntegra]

My front left wheel has a caster of -0.5 degrees whereas the acceptable factory range is 2.2 to 0.2 (according to the alignment print out). Four years ago I hit a curb head on that destroyed the splash shield, leaving me to assume that front left LCA was bent due to this. The car has a severe tendency to pull to the left, but that may be due to the toe out of the left rear wheel which has a (commonly) seized toe adjustment bolt.

My experience includes replacing the front strut, and lower ball joint joint before.

I'm wondering if the replacing the LCA is as straight forward as this video, makes it appear, especially when putting it back on? I intend to get an LCA that's similar or exact to the OEM design.

Any seized bolts and such I should be worried about? I'll be doing this myself, therefore no other pair of hands to assist me.

 

[TegSox]

I didn't have any problems removing any of my front LCA bolts last year. Removing some of the rear LCA bolts was definitely worse. Actually, only the front sway bar end link bolts gave me trouble, I had to cut them off with a dremel with some small metal cutting wheels, not that hard, and hey, I got to replace them with some Hardrace links.

 

[Samurai_Blue]

caster isnt a wear angle and doesnt do anything to the handling if you have a caster split like that. I track with a caster split thats bigger than that. I wouldnt worry about it.

 

[K3Ntegra]

I didn't have any problems removing any of my front LCA bolts last year. Removing some of the rear LCA bolts was definitely worse. Actually, only the front sway bar end link bolts gave me trouble, I had to cut them off with a dremel with some small metal cutting wheels, not that hard, and hey, I got to replace them with some Hardrace links.

Yeah I found out the hard way that Integra's come with sway bars unlike 5th gen civic on my first attempt. The bottom nut of the stabilizer link refused to come off; a piece of the 5mm hex bent when I turned the hex part instead of the upper nut, due to rust. But I was able to use a hammer and get it into place, so the the upper nut could come off. Packed everything and decided to get a new stabilizer link.

On the second attempt, I loosened the nut and bolt (19/17mm), to split the LCA in 2, and the stabilizer was able to come off of the sway bar while it was still attached to old LCA.

Getting the LCA bolt through the subframe mount was very difficult, I had to use a floor jack and block of woods (instead of connecting the outer LCA to the lower ball joint). To get the new stabilizer link in I had to jack the car up from the new LCA to put pressure on the upper stabilizer link bushing. Unfortunately I did this with the fork out from the strut; and I noticed light brown grease oozing out of the CV axle. Another possible way to avoid this, would been to loosen the axle nut a little bit.

There's no clicking noise from the CV axle, but I think I'll go ahead and replace the entire assembly anyway, since the car's old. A guide I came across.

Difficulty of changing the LCA is on par with the rear trailing arm bushing., if not worse, IMO.