2006 300C front suspension rebuild

I ordered the upper control arms. I've learned my lessons and just listen to you guys now. Luckily they are in the country and being cleared out on sale so I got a bit of a bargain and quick shipping to boot. Should be here during the week.

It looks to me I can do the bottom arms and whatnot and then reassemble, which will help keep everything together when I do the upper arm.

Managed to get it apart this afternoon was nowhere near as bad as I thought, although every single ball joint and bush is completely shagged. Had the usual struggles with the ball joints: nuts that wouldn't come off, ball joints that twirled while trying to get the nuts off. Had to employ every trick I know other than heat. Most of the time cracking the taper, then shoving it back in (not quite as far) gets enough purchase on the twirly ball joints, but a set of vice grips never goes astray.

edit: I thought I would hate this, working on suspension usually irritates me so I haven't done it for years. This is kinda...fun? Bashing on stuff and using muscles and whatnot.

edit 2: I figure unless you are really broke, just replace everything. Tie rods, ball joints, anything that has to come apart. It seems easier to remove the steering tie rod first, then the front lower control arm, then the rear one. Elastic straps to hold it more-or-less in place. If you remove things in that order it makes more room for working on the next step and putting it back together will be the reverse. Some of those bolts were tight but I now own a big breaker bar and it has been deployed liberally.

A ball joint breaker tool is handy but you have to destroy the ball joints half the time to get it on far enough, and the steering tie rod end I couldn't get the tool on at all, so I just bashed it with a hammer.

I hope you got underneath the car and measured the diameter of the sway bar , before you ordered those bushings ! Chrysler put 3 different size bars under these 300's and as I've found out , the majority of the rattling when on rough roads is worn /oversized swayer bushings. . before you start dissembling the sway bar retainers take a look at the bottom of the bushing when the car weight is compressing them ..as the noise got louder , I started stuffing zip ties into the space at the bottom of the rubber/steel bar contact point., to quiet the rattling Currently the new replacement bushings are on the front floor waiting for a. "round-to-it " moment !!! these are the mid-size hole bushings (27 MM bar) , but I am still going to clean and wrap the bar with some brass shim/ sheet -shimming stock...this will be the 3rd set of bushings in 113 k miles. just saying !

Upper control arm out. Haynes manual says you have to remove the shock/spring unit to get the bolts out and remove the front electrical distribution box but that is not true. You can loosen the spring/shock unit instead (just loosen off the 3 bolts at the top) and then you can move it enough to pull the bolts free from the upper suspension arm. In this case I had an 18mm ratcheting spanner so I was able to remove the nuts from inside the engine bay without pulling the electrical distribution box or the scuttle panel.

Unfortunately, the one one doesn't quite look like the one that was in there. The ball joint is further forward and the little stud mount is missing from what looks like some kind of motion sensor (don't know what that is). I guess I can weld that tab into the right spot on the new arm but the placement of the upper ball joint is far enough away that I think I have the wrong part.

If I have to order different upper arms, I think I might as well buy new shock/spring units since everything is out of the way already.

Swaybar getting new nolathane bushes, remember to grease only the inside with the little squeezy grease packet. I was going to skip replacing the sway bar links but they were completely stuffed and swapping them is easy, no taper on those ball joints.

Right side tie rod getting replaced. I am glad i couldn't get those lock nuts off now, again I was going to skip the inner tie rods as they seemed ok but its a simple job if the car is this far apart.

I forgot to add in which pieces I bought: Rock Auto Mevotech MKIT20200
Lower control arms: Rock Auto lower control arms x2
Upper control arms: Rock Auto SKP right side with the extra fitting for the tiny ball joint
Rock Auto SKP left side
Note these are listed as correct for the 2006 but the caster is changed a bit. Let's hope they work OK.

Nolathane bushes just from Ebay. I ended up with extra ball joints as that big kit doesn't include the upper and lower control arms and you get a set of ball joints with the Dorman lowers. The kit came with camber adjustable ball joints but I installed the normal ones instead.

edit: You could easily triple the parts cost here by buying high end Moog or whatever, I just want to drive it not win the Indy 500.

Edit 2: used blue loctite on the inner tie rods where they screw into the rack. Should probably be red but its a service part I would like a chance of disassembling again. Don't forget the white spacers you need them.