Hi mate,
Right, its not a hard job just awkward and time consuming. I've had 3 hgt's over the past 7-8 years, so I've done plenty and each one has been different, in the way that some went well and others made me want to smash the car up.
MAKE SURE you get the HGT wishbones as the lower models are different wishbones.
And also make sure you have a couple of bars, cause you need them to get it in and out.
Jack car up and remove wheel
Undo drop link nut on the underside of the wishbone
Undo the nut for the ball joint, inside of the hub, its a pinch bolt, so you'll need a socket and spanner.
Now, on the subframe there are 4 bolts, that go in on the bottom of the subframe and up into the wishbone, unbolt these but remember where the bolts came from as the vary in size, depending on which hole they came from.
Once these are undone, its time to drop the ball joint end (nearest the hub) out. You'll need a decent size flat screwdriver or flat bar, you can lock the steering wheel over eitherway to ease access. My personal preference is this, If i'm doing the drivers side wishbone, I lock the steering wheel over to the passenger side, and vice versa.
With your flat driver or bar, you need the try and pry the top of the ball joint down, toward the floor, some come out easy, some take the pi55! So have some WD40 ready.
Once the ball joint end is out, its a case of just dropping it down and out through manipulation.
Undo the drop link off the anti roll bar.
Now, to rebuild! THIS is the awkward part, sounds easy, but its not always, you need to be patient and take you time! Cause the more you irate yourself, the harder it will get. And the reason is this, the bushes on the new wishbone are tight and don't always want to move, this causes a problem when getting the bolts back in! If rush it you'll strip threads etc!
Put the top end of the new droplink back on the end of the roll bar, put the nut on but leave it slack.
Get the new bone and put it in place, now, you need to do this by eye to line up the holes, so I'd grab a torch.
Put the ball joint back in the hub and leave it loose too.
Once this is done, clean the bolts that attach the wishbone to the subframe with a green scourer and wd, the cleaner the tread is the easier it is to locate the thread. Start each of the 4 bolts, but don't tighten them up, just make sure you get 5mm of each thread into the wishbone. DO NOT force the thread and they generally go in on the **** if your not careful! Copper grease may help, but not too much.
Once you've located these, you need to make sure you ball joint is located and now another awkward part, the drop link! You can get a bar on the anti roll bar to get the stub into the wishbone. Once this is done, tighten the 4 bolts on the sub frame, make sure the ball joint end is all the way in and tighten. And the drop link is a pain in the ass. Its hard to start the tread on that as well, as the bushes are tight again! You need to bar down on the roll bar, and then get the nut on the drop link, this might be a 2 man job as its so awkward! Once that's on, tighten everything up, you'll need to check torque settings as I don't have them to hand. I just do the tightening by hand as I've done that many of these! And make sure you triple check all the nuts and bolts!
But all you need for this job is time, plenty of patients, a socket and spanner set, WD40, and a bar or two. You can use an additional trolley jack to manipulate things in easier. Drop me a message if you need any more help on this.
Good Luck
