Installation Time
(approx) 2 Hours
Difficulty Level:
Light to Moderate mechanical skill required.
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Jake: Jake here for American Muscle. And today, I'm taking a look at the C&L Non-Adjustable Rear Lower Control Arms in Blue, fitting 2005 to 2014 Mustangs. If you can't put power to the ground, then let's face it, well, you're not going anywhere. And if your S197 is in need of an injection of additional traction, or is suffering from a lot of rear wheel hop, a set of these lower control arms are going to prove very helpful for you. These are a bolt-in solution that will help you put down power much more easily for a very reasonable price. Can't really go anywhere if you're unable to reliably transfer power to the ground. And if you've got axle hop-on launchers, well, you know all about that.One way to combat that issue is a set of upgraded rear lower control arms like these ones from C&L. Now, these have some additional strength baked in versus your stock arms, and they include new polyurethane bushings as well to help clean up any slop or play that you might have going on down there. These bushings are also greaseable. And to help extend their life and keep away noise, you've got zerk fittings on top of each one right here. So you can easily just pop the fitting on, grease them up, and be on your way. Those bushings are also much stiffer than the OEM spec rubber ones.So whether you're out on the drag strip or the race circuit, these are going to help keep the rear axle more planted versus those stock control arms. The thick steel and these poly bushings combine to give you more grip or better overall traction and more control, so you'll have an easier time putting power down from a dead stop or coming out of a corner. This is really an easy modification that will definitely make an improvement on how your car puts its power down the ground. It's going to keep things planted, making that power transfer much smoother and easier, and it's not going to sacrifice the ride quality either.Now, we also have these in red should that be more your style. And everything is the same between the two, so just pick your favorite color and buy that one. Construction here is also a highlight, and the arms themselves are made from a high-strength heavy-duty box steel tubing for added strength and durability versus those stock arms. And the whole arm again is coated in this really nice dark blue powder coat, so for added protection against the elements and really just looking good too.Now, the bushings, as we already discussed, are made from polyurethane, which is, again, stronger, stiffer, and much more durable than the stock rubber bushings. And again, they can be greased using these zerk fittings on either end. Pricing is also a big win, coming in at just about $150 for the set. That makes these one of the least expensive options in the category. And while you're not getting adjustability here, these are still going to be an improvement over your stock setup, and they won't ruin the ride of your car or your bank account. Installation gets a two out of three on our difficulty meter, and it should take you about two hours to complete.Now, you will have to get under the car and pull out some pretty hefty bolts to get these in, but they are a straight swap for your stock ones. And bolt-in process doesn't require any modifications to your car, of course. The only thing you'll want to do afterwards is get the car aligned to keep everything tracking straight and true. And with that, let's throw it over to one of our AM customers who's going to show you what this process will look like.Bob: During this installation removal, you could use hand tools. I did a little bit quicker using some impact, a 3/8 air ratchet with an 18-millimeter socket, a torque wrench with an 18-millimeter socket, a grease gun that has marine-grade grease in it, a small 1/4-inch to tighten the zerks when you have it, a pair of pliers, a vise grip that you see, and I actually use that to pull the parking brake cable mechanism back. You could have used a screwdriver for that also. So I'm Bob Buffman [SP]. We're gonna be putting some C&L lower control arms on this 2009 Mustang today.First thing we're gonna is take the tires off. I'm just gonna hold this diff up so it doesn't sag down. You don't wanna put all the weight of the rear differential on the shocks. So when we drop these lower control arms in we have that in support. Take these bolts out with the washers on the backside.Now, to remove the front bolts off of here, we can't use the impact gun. There's not enough room. I really don't like putting a swivel on an impact gun. Things go flying across the shop if you do that, so use a 3/8 air ratchet. Go to the other side and do the same thing. Remove the 18-millimeter bolt. And you'll notice that the parking brake cable is going through one of the holes in the center of the lower control arm.So, we need to detach the parking brake cable, which we can't do this by having the hoist in the way here, right? We still have the upper control arm attached, so that's taken a lot of weight also. So, the shocks are taking all the load of that. So we're gonna come in here, we're gonna force this parking brake cable downward. We'll get this retaining clip out of the way down here. Maybe that'll make it a little bit easier to pull this cable. If you can get a camera down here, we can see the clip I'm removing. There we go.And now we'll go ahead and pull the parking brake cable through. Go to the other side and do the same thing. Again, we got to remove the retaining clip. And now we've got this removed. We're gonna go over to the table where we've got the new control arms. So we've got the instructions here. And this is kind of important. It kind of shows the stuff we did to remove this. One thing that you're gonna notice about these new C&L lower control arms is they have an offset here.And if you look at the picture, it's showing the offset going towards the center, towards the differential itself. So we're gonna install these zerk fittings that come with the lower control arms. When you go to tighten these zerks up, you just snug them. Gotta remember they're just a very soft metal going into a pre-tapped hole. And we're gonna go ahead and put a little bit of this grease. And what we have here is what they call marine grease. I'm gonna put a little bit on the face of this polyurethane bushing.If you don't do this, you might hear a little bit of squeaking coming from the rear end as you're going over bumps or as the rear of the car bounces up and down. Just a thin film is all we need. And we're gonna wait till we install the control arm before we grease it. The grease zerk will go towards the bottom so you can access it to grease it. Looking at this knowing that the offset needs to go into the inside, we're gonna take this over to the driver's rear side of the car.So we're gonna go and grab this 18-millimeter bolt. Again, we're gonna verify that our offset is towards the inside of the vehicle. And you're gonna notice that this is gonna fit kind of tight. What you're gonna wanna do there is go ahead and spread that open just a hair. An adjustable wrench, you could actually use an adjustable wrench for this or a pair of vise grips. We're simply just gonna come right here, snap it, and kind of pull it out a little bit. And you notice that slides in a little bit easier.We're not gonna tighten these bolts all the way down yet. We're just gonna get everything started. And the reason why we're not gonna tighten these down yet is because we want to have this differential what I would call loaded or the weight of this differential and actually the whole car is on the weight of the vehicle. If we don't do that, we could have an issue with how these control arms are loaded.I'm actually gonna lift right on the front of the differential to get that rear differential to roll. You notice it's rolling forward. And here we're a little bit too far. I just dropped that rear differential down just up here to line us right back up. Now that we're lined up, I'm gonna go ahead and lift up the whole differential. We're gonna lift this up. Now, if you're on the ground, you got to be watching your jack stands. But since we're on the hoist, I'm gonna be watching where my rear pads are on this hoist. And I'm gonna lift just where the car barely starts to come off that pad. And what I've done is I've loaded those control arms to the right height that we're gonna be at.And now we're gonna grab our air ratchet, and we're gonna torque these to spec. And now we're gonna go ahead and grease these zerk fittings. We're gonna take our emergency or parking brake cable. We're gonna come across the top, repeat that process, come on top of the control arm. Get a good close-up view of what we're doing here with this clip. And the install of that set of lower control arms is complete.Jake: That's gonna wrap it up here for our review and install of the C&L Non-Adjustable Rear Lower Control Arms in Blue, fitting 2005 to 2014 Mustangs. Thanks so much for watching. And remember, for all things Mustang, be sure to keep it right here at americanmuscle.com.
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Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
Brand | C&L |
Control Arm Type | Fixed |
Control Arm Placement | Rear Lower |
Fitment:
C&L 410883
CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 2 Hours
Difficulty Level:
Light to Moderate mechanical skill required.
What's in the Box
10 More Questions