I'll try to nail down each of your questions. First, yes, 22mm for that inner ball joint. Sometimes getting it off is tricky. I've had to R/R mine twice, the first time I did it was very tough. I did it with a normal Craftsman 22mm box end wrench. At the particular angle the nut was at, when I put the wrench on, there was only about an inch of room left to turn the nut the direction it needed to go. As you know since you've been down there, there's no room to stick on a cheater bar, so that wrench is all the leverage you've got. With no small amount of cussing, I was able to turn the nut that first inch, "breaking" it free. I sort of remember grabbing the wrench with one hand and whatever solid thing was near it and trying to push them together like if you're using a pair of hedge clippers, or a ThighMaster with your hands. The rest was easy enough, just very slow, since you can only do about a quarter turn at a time.

I did have access to air tools at the time, and although I don't remember exactly why I didn't use them, there must have been something in the way that I couldn't get a socket on from the top, otherwise there is no way I would have chosen to do it manually.

To get the bushing/lollypop bracket off the CA, I used my three arm puller. You can borrow or just buy one from the auto parts store for like $15. It's kind of tough to align it and keep it aligned as the bushing pulls off, b/c the bushing is not solid and want to skew to one side and throw your puller off, but just keep an eye on the puller as you are backing it off, and you should be ok. Oh yeah, it helps if you have a center punch, to put an indention in the end of the control arm for the center post of the puller to sit in.

to get the bushing out of the bracket, just chisel or Exacto-knife the inside of the bushing out, and hit the outer metal band of the bushing (not the bracket) with the dremel tool and cutting wheel, or if you prefer manually, a hacksaw. you can then bend and mangle the metal band out of the bracket.

To get the new ones back in (you did order the M3 eccentric ones, right?) some people say you can press them in with a bench vise, but maybe they had a MUCH bigger vise than me, 'cause I tried that and didn't get anywhere. Some people say that you can use your floor jack and a sturdy lip of your house to press them in, which seems like it might work, but all I had was wood siding, no concrete, so I didn't try that method. I just paid a machine shop $20 to do it. Make sure they know how the bushing need to be aligned in the brackets.

To get the bushings back on the CA, I first sanded the black powder coat off the CA end to get an extra fraction of a mm clearence and then just greased 'em up with non-gritty hand cleaner (or dish soap) and shoved them on. Don't try to bang them on with a sledge hammer, they need slow, steady pressure. Twisting also helps.

let us know if there's anything else,

Mac
87 325is

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