1st Gen Control Arm Bushing replacement

[Imp558]

This wasn't bad at all, and as it turns out there was a special little tool by Kent-Moore (J37267) that was used to prevent the control arm from bending or crushing during the press.

 

 

Here's a pic to show the area where the bushing is and how little support the control arm actually has in this region. Unfortunately also shows SOME of the mess on my workbench.

 

 

The actual tool was something like my hunk of pipe but it didn't go completely around like mine does. I'm not going to go into great detail about this process but I essentially bought a foot of 2" pipe and used it to make all 3 of the pieces I needed to do the job.

Fabrication time was about an hour, pressing the bushings took about a half hour on the first control arm and 15 - 20 minutes on the second one.

 

In this picture I'm showing the piece of pipe I cut and ground to slip fit inside the arms to fill the space before pressing, it was cut in half for insertion and held them together with a hose clamp once it was in.

There's also a couple of rings I made from that same foot of pipe. The ring that's just a short piece of pipe was for the rearward bushings, the one that was notched and split to open it up a bit was for the forward bushings.

 

 

I also used a socket that was a nice size to push the forward bushings out, the rearward ones came out like a bullet once they let go so I didn't need a socket on them.

 

 

I used the vice but realistically one could fabricate something to use threaded rod and sort of re-create the tool in that first picture.  I did a search for J37267 out of curiosity and found nothing, not sure if the other tools in the illustration are still available or not.

 

 

At any rate this wasn't rocket surgery, anybody could make a piece of something to keep the arm from collapsing and press bushings in/out, and I really think what I made was overkill, could probably be just 1 of those halves that I made since that's what the Kent-Moore tool really appears to look like anyways.

[pshojo]

I replaced my control arms, being relatively inexpensive and not having the tool. However i noticed factory control arms are considerably heavier.  I wonder what that helps, or does it?

[Imp558]

It saves like $200 for one thing, I noticed my factory control arms where heavier too. Both of my factory ones were bent in an accident several years ago so these are actually replacements that only lasted about four years before the bushings were trashed. Of course the road conditions are terrible up here even in the summertime.

[Schurkey]

That is exactly why I refuse to install rubber control arm bushings if I can source Polyurethane bushings.  The labor savings is tremendous.

 

There's no need for special tooling, no need for a press.  No need to put the suspension at "normal ride-height" to torque the bolts going through the bushings.  Everything becomes simple.

 

Remove control arms just as you would for the normal procedure.  Use a propane torch to heat the control arm bushing shells until the rubber gets melty, smoky, and starts spitting fire.  The rubber bushings along with the inner sleeve will pop out of the outer shells.  Clean-up the outer shells after they cool using sandpaper or emery cloth.  Once the ID of the shell is nicely polished, grease the ID of the shell, the new Poly bushing, and the OD of the new inner sleeve.  Push the bushing/sleeve into position with your fingers.  The original outer shell is re-used.  It never comes out of the control arm, so the control arm is never in danger of distortion.  Because the Poly bushings are not bonded to the inner sleeve and outer shell, the bolts can be torqued with the suspension in any position.

 

Yes, you need to do this where you can't set anything on fire, and where the smoke will not disturb children and crybabies.  And, of course, if Poly bushings aren't available, you're back to the full-on, special-tools, press method of bushing replacement.  Once the rubber bushings are installed in the control arm, you have to put the suspension at normal ride-height before torquing the bushing bolts.  Failure to do this will result in the rubber being ripped from the outer shell or the inner sleeve.  It's ruined, and will probably squeek, too.

[Imp558]

Shurkey do you have P/N's for poly bushings that fit a first Gen?

There's an existing thread on poly bushings but they look like a hard press and need trimmed with a hacksaw afterwards.

[Schurkey]

Nope.  No p/n.  No application beyond what's in that other thread.

 

I've had Poly control arm bushings made to fit early Toronado/Eldorado, but I'm not likely to fund another project like that.

[mfewtrail]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aPbL9HTHZg0

 

Posting from mobile so I'm not sure that will embed here properly. I'll fix it in a bit from a pc...

[Imp558]

Our control arms are pretty flimsy, they will bend and collapse if you yell at them just right. I was trying more to show cribbing between them but the pressing is fundamentally the same.

[Imp558]

Just cross linking these threads for now to help navigation.

 

Page 6 has newer info. I'll be doing a write-up on poly bushings shortly but for now all the old and new info is over there.

 

http://www.w-body.com/topic/39137-poly-control-arm-bushings-on-1st-gen-w-body/page-6

 

Anybody doing poly before I get my write up with pictures, DO NOT bonfire the old bushings like the OG's did back in the old days. A little heat on the steel and the rubber will let go and lost interest in being one with the steel. No need to torch the whole thing or even see burning rubber at all, it just pries out once the steel is hot.