I recently started a front-end overhaul on my 2004 XC70, with a goal of swapping at least the axles, lower control arms, and spindles with those salvaged from an XC90. My XC70 is my baby, and while I don’t need to push the absolute limits with where it can go, I do love taking it off the beaten path for camping and scouting for hunting trips. It’s got a combination of highway comfort, camping comfort, and ability to get to places it seems like it shouldn’t be able to, that just can’t be beat. That said, I have ruined two OE axles already doing that (once was fair, the second was, I think, the result of a bad job at a local shop—lesson learned), and I have known for a while that many of the front end bushings, etc., were really worn out if not completely shot. So, I wanted to set myself up for success for some upcoming trips this year and learn a bit along the way.
For phase 1, I started out a little over-ambitious. I got appropriate (or so I thought) XC90 axles and lower control arms, as well as new ball joints that would fit the control arms. I wanted to swap axles and control arms, but keep existing spindles, brakes, etc. I also planned on doing a standard end link replacement. Already, you might have caught one of my mistakes. Can you spot the other below?
I’ll get to those later.
Things started easily enough… got the wheels, brakes, spindles, control arms, and the passenger-side axle out. From reading this forum, I knew the driver side axle could likely be a pain, so I came ready with a couple different chisels, pry bars, and the like to see what might work. Nothing did. I spent an hour, then another hour, then another, came back the next day and spent another two hours, gave it a rest for a week, tried it all over again, never making any progress. It was difficult at this point to remember the refrain of many people here who indicated it’s really more about finesse and getting the angles just right than it is about brute force. After hours of sweet talking, I went the brute force route—still to no avail.
I went back over a lot of the experiences posted here and on other forums and realized more than a few people were using 4lb hammers to get wedged in there. I was just using the one I pulled from the garage, a regular framing hammer. I borrowed a 4lb hammer and what do you know, it popped out after two taps. Not wanting to fly too close to the sun, I just called it a day after that, went in and had a beer. You can see here the damage I did by trying to compensate for the lack of power behind the smaller hammer:
Now to put things back. Earlier, I took the “new” XC90 control arms to my local indie shop to have them press out the bushings to match the bolt pattern for the XC70… I didn’t have any tools that would get me close to where I needed to be there, and these guys did them for $10, so I think that was money well spent in my case. Those went in fine, and at this point I also replaced my old end links with new Lemforders.
Then I started on the axles. Driver’s side went in like a breeze, but the passenger wouldn’t even get lined up. I puzzled at this for a while and then compared the old and new parts and realized something was definitely wrong (see the parts image above). Turns out, I had accidentally acquired a front passenger axle from a 2005, 2.5T FWD XC90—not an AWD XC90. The passenger axle is quite different between the two and doesn’t even begin to fit here. My mistake for not spotting that difference earlier. Sent that one back, found another one, and patiently waited.
Once the new axle came in, it also went in easily, and then axles were done. For the ABS spacer problem, I followed what several have done here and used a specific washer, Midwest Fastener 81146, and filed out the inside to both open up the I.D. just a bit, and also create some space because there isn’t a 90-degree angle around the spline bit. Took some elbow grease and a lot of back-and-forth but well worth it to be able to use a 67 cent part.
On to the spindles. I was hoping to use the existing XC70 spindles and simply put a new XC90 ball joint into them. I found some conflicting notes across the web about whether this would or wouldn’t work, but since it would have been ideal if it did work, I was optimistic and made this part of the plan. As you might already know, this most definitely does not work—the XC70 and XC90 ball joints look very similar but the XC90s are ever so slightly larger and do not fit in the XC70 spindles:
I put my old spindles back together again, took out the XC90 LCAs, put back in the old XC70 LCAs, and then put the original spindles and brakes back on, put the wheels back on, lowered the car, and then called it a day. I wasn’t yet ready for whatever surprises were waiting for me when I turned the thing on.
As it turned out, nothing really. She started up fine, backed out fine, and even zipped around the neighborhood fine. Will obviously need an alignment, but I will probably just leave her alone until I can get new XC90 spindles so that I can put the XC90 LCAs back as well and then have a truly HD-upgraded front-end. All in all, with what I know now, this is really a rather straightforward job that could be accomplished in short order—if things go your way! Of course, that’s only possible for somebody like me because of the thought, debate, and work put in on forums like this over many years by people who know a lot more than I do.