Suspension Any Tips On Replacing Factory Front Control Arms?

I've been lurking for a long time on here and love the wealth of info that is available on the forums!

I've searched and searched but haven't had any luck finding any threads describing the correct process for replacing factory lower front control arms on a 86-93 fox. I have old worn out ball joints and just went ahead and bought stock replacement control arms (with joints & bushings) after reading what a pain it is to remove and replace the ball joints themselves.

I've already done springs and struts on the car so I have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done but wanted to reach out to you guys to see if there's any specific tricks that could make my life easier.

For example, can I leave the strut connected to the spindle, place a jack under the arm, and just unbolt the ball joint, lower the jack, remove the spring and arm, and reinstall? It's not a big deal if I have to remove the strut completely but if I don't have to that would be awesome.

Thanks!

Thanks for the advice guys! I know I sound super lazy wanting to remove as little as possible and it sounds like I should follow the same process I did for the springs and remove the spindles as well.

I actually don't have an impact gun, but today helped my mother's boyfriend install a lift in his shop which granted me full shop access in the future so now I will though, along with so many more tools than I have personally!!

I really hope I won't have issues with the control arm connecting bolts like you mentioned, LiquidStangs. It's a Florida car and has frame rust at all so fingers crossed on that.

Thanks for the tip on waiting to do the final tightening until the car's back on the ground, the last thing I want to do is put premature wear on the new bushings.

I'm hoping to get around to this next weekend and will let you guys know how it goes!

I finally got the time to do the control arm replacement yesterday and everything went well!

I didn't have a puller tool to get the ball joint off the spindle, but was able to get it off with a big ass hammer. The control arm bolts were definitely stuck on there good, but I'd soaked them with PB blaster a couple times over the last few weeks and was able to get them with a breaker bar and some elbow grease.

The MVP of the day was the spring installation tool by Maximum Motorsports. When I did the suspension a few months ago I used a friend's old spring compressor tool to get the springs in and it was an absolute nightmare trying to get the clamps in the right spot to allow the spring to be compressed and still seat correctly when the control arm was lifted. The MM spring tool worked perfectly and makes the install SO much easier and faster. Definitely worth the $20 to avoid the couple hours I spent messing with the compressor tool the first time.

I think the biggest pain of the whole process might have been doing the final tightening of the bolts with the car off the lift. I didn't have the right combination of socket extensions to allow me to clear the tire when tightening so it was a pretty limited range of motion. If I had a set of ramps it would have made that part easier but was still doable without them.

I took some pics of the passenger side while doing it in case anyone wants to check that out here: https://goo.gl/photos/cuendTCCo7Nx3zfQ9 Please ignore the terrible red spray painted calipers, they were like that when I bought the car haha. Thanks again guys for all the great advice!