E.S. poly control arm bushing swap mutated into control arm reconditioning

[Myotis1134]

After reading 'The Official Poly Control Arm Bushing Writeup' by xtremerevolution in the how-to/fac section, I was pumped to perform the swap. Ordered the kit from Energy Suspension, got it, and yanked my control arms. That's when everything went to hell.

 

After pulling the arms, I realized that they looked like crap, and that I had to freshen them up with a nice coat of Por-15. This meant getting them sandblasted, or grinding for hours. I decided to go the sandblasting route. I called around, got some prices, and more importantly, found a shop that could clean the arms the same day. The next step was finding a machine shop that could press out and then in the new sleeves, this was the hard part. I found a reputable shop that was busy for the next several weeks, the shop recommended another shop that was likewise busy for weeks to come. The second shop recommended a third machinist, who told me he could get to the arms the next day. The third-choice machinist didn't get to the arms until four days after I dropped them off. When I showed up at his shop on the fourth day with the intention of taking back the arms and doing it all myself, he quickly assured me that his day was light, and he could do my arms right then, as well as sandblast them. I hung out for about 4 hours while the arms were blasted, and after some trial and error, the old bushings pressed out.

 

I took the arms to my aunt's house, busted out the grinder and smoothed out the bumps and sharp edges a bit, cleaned them with Dawn dishwashing soap, toweled them off and threw them in the oven at 200 to dry, put them back in the tub and degreased them with some concentrated crap I got from Home Depot, rinsed them again, toweled them and baked them for about 10 minutes. Then kept them wet for 30 minutes with Metal Ready (by the Por-15 guys), rinsed them and baked them. Took them to the garage and got a little carried away with the first coat of Por-15 (the first coat is supposed to be light, because otherwise it WILL run) let them cure for 2 hours, flipped them and coated the other side. The instructions on the can says to let each coat dry for 2 hours before doing anything else, and this proved to be accurate. Since humidity causes the coat to cure faster, and it rained all summer here in AK, I cracked the garage door to let some moisture in, just to be sure.

 

Got my recommended 2 coats on the top and bottom of the arms, couldn't find a curved brush to get the insides, but being a genius, found a sponge-brush, soaked it good in the Por-15, and mashed it around the insides. The brush handle was short enough that I could fit the whole thing into the control arm, and the damn sponge soaked up so much of the paint that I didn't have to re-wet it. After 2 coats on the innards, I had to go back to the Kenai Peninsula for school, so I had my sister drop off the arms at the machinist, who was impressed by my Por-15 job (as is proper). Called the guy the other day, and found out that he had already pressed in one of the new sleeves, but ruined the larger sleeves when he attempted to lathe it down to the proportions of the original (The larger diameter sleeves are indeed a tad too large for the arms, as pointed out in the abovementioned post). He was thinking about building new sleeves, but blasted the originals and reinstalled them instead. Whatever works.

 

I had the third-choice machinist hold off on putting the bushings in, because I want to do some of it myself. I'll take my calipers when I go to get the arms on Tuesday, and measure the outer lip on the bushing so the inner sleeve can be cut to size accurately (my calipers are nicer than the machinist's. Scary). Then I'll press in the bushings using the bolt-method, cut them to size, and insert the inner sleeve. The rest should be easy, but I wonder if anyone has any recommendations on how best to cut the bushings? I'm worried about either melting the polyurethane by having a blade moving too fast, as well as tearing off chunks. What is the right tool for this particular job?

 

I'll throw up some more pics when I do the bushings. I'm toying with the idea of applying Por-15 around the outside edges, and on the insides of the reinstalled sleeves, but see that it isn't usually done. Does anyone know if coating the insides of the sleeve will adversely affect the function of the bushing?

 

p.s. Is it just me, or do I totally look like Bane in the respirator?

Edited September 2, 2012 by Myotis1134

[xtremerevolution]

Don't coat the insides of the sleeves. Not much point to it. You can grease them up though.

 

Can't stress enough, make sure you read and understand each detail in my writeup on this mod. Others thought they could "do it their way," and ended up calling me to ask me why it was so difficult. It's really not difficult if you follow the steps I outlined.

 

Sent from my Bulletproof_Doubleshot using Tapatalk 2

[rich17]

Looks good! I really need to get my ass in gear and do mine

[rich_e777]

Ive never seen a man more happy to be holding a control arm in all my life:lol:

 

I only thought that kind of happiness existed in U-pull it yards fighting 15 year old rust getting to sway bars.