Left front Suspension will not compress

[Hasb]

Working on a KIA Carens (or Rondo, in USA). I am replacing both LHS and RHS front lower arm ball joints, that mount on the bottom of each suspension leg, and both LHS and RHS lower control arms.
Car is supported on 2 axle stands, which I have located on the front subframe which runs around the engine/gearbox assembly, in front of the front axle by about 25cm (10 inches). The rear wheels are on the ground. Both stands are unfortunately only on tarmac, but I cannot detect any sinking after 1 week.

I removed the front wheels, lifted calipers out the way and removed the brake rotor discs.
On RHS of car, I managed to remove the old control arm and fit the new one by jacking the base of the suspension leg up to compress the front spring until the arm was in the horizontal position. With a 3 tonne trolley jack I could raise the suspension to any position I liked and job was relatively easy, if I ignore the time wasted in attempts to split a siezed ball joint.

However LHS has been a total pain. For some unknown reason the suspension will not compress using the trolley jack. I have managed to get the old lower arm out and a new one mounted to the chassis.
But there is no way I can locate the ball joint into the lower arm, because I cannot get the suspension leg into the correct position.
As I apply upwards pressure (using the trolley jack) on the base of the suspension leg, instead of compressing the spring, it raises the whole car off the LHS axle stand!
Worst still, the suspension leg appears to drift 2cm outwards, further away from the required position needed to locate the balljoint pin into the arm.
Once the the car has risen say 4cm off the LHS axle stand I get scared, because if the suspension spring was suddenly to give way the force of the car dropping 4cm back onto the stand could shatter the spring, bend the suspension strut and shoot the trolley jack out. So I keep lowering and trying again, to no avail.

In certain steering positions, I can raise the lower control arm to the horizontal, with the base of the suspension leg sitting to one side of the control arm, but the leg is too low down to bring it across and drop the balljoint pin into it. I have tried the more sensible option, which is mount the ball joint to the control arm first, then try and bolt the ball joint mounting bolts into the suspension leg, but I cannot get the bolt holes lined up to do this.
I no longer have spring compressors, which might help I suppose, but surely, I should not need these, as RHS compressed without hitch on the jack?

But my question (for all patient readers, sorry so long winded!) is really this: -
Has anyone heard of suspension behaving like this? Is it normal, perhaps due to forces that have built up in tie-rod and anti-roll bar systems, to compress on one side and not the other?
I was only thinking this, because I started compressing RHS first, using both axle stands on RHS of car, initially leaving LHS front wheel just in contact with the ground.
I would have thought this would be an unlikely cause, so would I be correct in then assuming there is a nasty fault within my LHS suspension causing it to stick and bind?

I can recall no suspension issues with the car before I started the work (despite the wear to one control arm bush and a bit of play in the ball joints); no clunks, no bad ride
or handling, no vibration or bad stopping characteristics.

Edited by Hasb on Monday 16th January 14:34

Edited by Hasb on Monday 16th January 14:41

[E-bmw]

I assume you have removed the anti-roll bar?

If so, it sounds like you need to remove the strut that side & expect to find something major wrong with the shock.

Possibly a bend in the damper rod.

[paintman]

Instead of pushing the strut upwards have you tried using a lever to pivot the control arm downwards?

This seems to cover many Kias - doesn't mention the Carens but your parts pic looks much the same - & they are using a lever on the control arm to push it down & release the ball joint pin. Fitting would the same.
The suspension is hanging down.
Watch from 3.40. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObLXMZq00PM


But as already said, there might be an issue with the strut - or it might be the angle you're pushing it at.

Edited by paintman on Monday 16th January 18:30

[Hasb]

E-bmw said:

I assume you have removed the anti-roll bar?

If so, it sounds like you need to remove the strut that side & expect to find something major wrong with the shock.

Possibly a bend in the damper rod.

Thanks E-bmw for your reply! Has helped a bit!

No, I have not touched the anti-roll bar assembly, and I think you are right, it is the anti-roll that is keeping suspension leg from lining up with control arm.
Nuts and bolts on anti-roll drop-links (and anywhere else on anti-roll bar) are badly rusted so I wanted to avoid touching them. Also I got away with out removing these on RHS, so was hoping for the same on LHS.

But as tension has now built up in the anti-roll bar, I think I am going to have to try and loosen it somewhere!
I have notion it is this tension that is mis-aligning the shocker, preventing its normal compression. You could be right in that damper rod has a slight bend, if in jacking car up with a mis-aligned shocker I might have put too much force on it.
I will have to run some checks on the shock absorber once I have eradicated the tension.
I have not dropped the completed RHS front down to the ground yet, it is still on axle stand.
Wonder if resting RHS down on ground may help the anti-roll bar tension, or would it make it worse?

[Hasb]

paintman said:

Instead of pushing the strut upwards have you tried using a lever to pivot the control arm downwards?

This seems to cover many Kias - doesn't mention the Carens but your parts pic looks much the same - & they are using a lever on the control arm to push it down & release the ball joint pin. Fitting would the same.
The suspension is hanging down.
Watch from 3.40. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObLXMZq00PM


But as already said, there might be an issue with the strut - or it might be the angle you're pushing it at.

Edited by paintman on Monday 16th January 18:30

Thanks Paintman! Yes I can force lower arm down, but the further down I push, the centre of the locating hole drifts further towards the centre of the car.
My problem is the suspension leg is cambered to far outwards, due to tension in the anti-roll bars (see reply to E-bmw).
Looked at many You tube videos and I only found one (on a Subaru) that even mentioned removing undoing the anti-roll, he says he will explain later in his clip why he spent ages removing it, then he never goes back to explain why he did!
Other video by autodoc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTGnl-YE5M0) makes it look so easy, although I suspect they are staged clips with everything loosened and prepared before filming commences. However my RHS did go pretty much as many videos show, a little jiggling around and I got it all aligned.

[SlimJim16v]

There's no point putting it back together if the strut is fked.

[Hasb]

SlimJim16v said:

There's no point putting it back together if the strut is fked.

Too true!
I will have to run some checks on the shock absorber once I have eradicated the tension.
Once tension is gone, I hope I can check the movement of the strut.

[Krikkit]

Is the now-finished right-hand side now on the ground? Or is the whole front on a pair of stands?

If you're following the same procedure as the RHS then you shouldn't have any issues - loosening the ARB won't help if there's that much resistance from the shock to compress.

If it really won't budge with a trolley jack then the damper's knackered, just take it out and replace.