Four Words That Mean You Are In For A Bad Day

[android]

"Reuse metal bushing parts"

[quicksilverdon]

Are you re-doing your suspension bushings? How bad a job is it?

[Sci-Fi]

Those are the metal bolt sleeves that fit inside of the bushings. In general they shouldn't show much, if any, wear. It's just a pain to get them out, clean them up, and fit/press them into the new bushings.

[android]

Yes, So far I've done the front sway bar and the rear sway bar and 1 bumper stop. The front is pretty easy. It's just remove and replace with new parts.

The rear sway bar connecting bushing are the hard ones that pissed me off. It's difficult to get the bushings out of the linkages but possible. Then you have 4 bushings where the rubber is molded onto the metal insert. I used an old chef's knife I keep in the garage to cut and shave all the rubber off. The rubber is very hard to cut and it took about 15 minutes per insert the get the rubber off and get the part cleaned up enough to reuse. By the time I was done, the knife was as dull as a butter knife. I used a wood-working clamp to press the new bushing into the linkage as I squished and coerced it in the right direction with some channel locks. After the bushing is in the linkage, I used the clamp again to squeeze in the insert.

The bracket the clamps the bar to the axle is fun too. You have to bend up the metal tab, replace the bushing and then hold it all together tightly, while you bend the tab back over.

When you put the rear sway bar back on, you're not supposed to torque the links until you have weight on wheels. Of course that makes it a pain to reach. The wheel is in the way of 2 bolts and muffler is in the way of 1. 1 is in the clear though. Yippy Yi Yay!

I had the Watts linkage off the car, but didn't have time to fool with it, so I put it back together.

[quicksilverdon]

Hope it's worth the effort...[:0]