hey guys, while cleaning up and detailing my undercarriage i noticed my bushing just about gone! so now i need to see about fixing that. my question is how hard a job is that? can a relatively noob change those out or will i need special tools? or should i just bring it to shop.

thanks!

 

Hey Mike !

I consider myself medium knowledge when it comes to basic mecanic. But I have minimum "hands on" experience.:o
I have a fair garage set up and medium equipped with tools.

My 1980 vette is still jacked up(approx 2ft) from the winter months and mild weather recently kicked in. The garage is now well heated and I plunged under the vette !

Disconnecting the monopspring safely then the struts and shocks is straight forward. Half shafts were ok.(12point 1/4" socket)
What was a bit intimidating was disconnecting the brake lines and taking the calipers off the arm(2 bolts). I made sure my brake pedal was depressed. I'm not to keen playing around with the brake system.

I used a jack to hold up the arm. Then taking the nut/bolt was tight but I managed. The arm pulled right out.

To take out the worn bushings, I drilled out the inside coupling. Then using a hammer and flat screwdriver, the rest was pried out !

Since I had the arm out, I cleaned the inside wheel well, brake calipers painted. The wheel assembly was taken apart and changed all my bearings.(that was done with assistance from a home mecanic with the proper tools).
All parts were "sand blasted" and painted red/black/yellow/aluminim and WOW its nice !

So to answer your question, Its not that complicated.
Soooooo many pictures and stuff to read on this forum, you will NOT get stuck for long !

Good luck
ps. I'm a "newby" when it comes to DOING IT ! With supervision, I go for it ! YOU CAN TOO !

S80

 

Cool! i wanna learn just don't wanna get overwhelmed! thanks for the advice i trying to cordinate how to tackle the job and find some local help.

good luck to you too and post up some pics!

 

Not really but you must be patient and organized a bit.
Worked on one trailer arm at a time. Dismantled piece by piece and set it on a cafeteria table(long) in order. This way I learned to reassemble in same order.
Trailer arm uses "shims". Note them well for you to reinstall the same way !

You will definetely need a good mechanic friend with the proper tools(puller) to yank those wheel bearings out of there.(if you decide to change them.) He should be able to "press" them back in.

Then you will need time to clean the pieces and paint them if you go that route.

Heads up !
I'm pretty sure that if you take things apart, be ready to by new parts.(emergency break rebuild kit, pads. spray paint cans, grinding wheels, masking tape

Keep in mind that I'm like you, a beginner.
Others more experience guys can or may post different opinion !

I'm putting everything back together today.
I'll take pictures and try to post them !

 

are you talking about the trailing arm bushings or the front control arm bushings?

 

If you are talking about the front suspension it's not that hard. I completely rebuilt my 70's about three years ago. Most out of the ordinary tools you can borrow from autozone, etc. Search this site. There are soome very good step by step directions. When I got the control arms out, I took them to a machine shop. They removed the ball joints and bushings and installed the new bushings for a reasonable fee, saving me from some of the hardest work.

 

If you have a air chisel and a vice they are not too bad..

 

front suspension is what i wanna do. we did the trailing arms last year but the guy that did that for me is unavailble for this job.

thanks for the help guys i will keep you all posted.

 

Ask Lars for his paper on control arm bushing replacement.

Email him at V8FastCars@msn.com

 

You can do it yourself or do it the easy way. Call Vansteel and have replacement control arms with the bushings already in and the load preset. You'll save considerable time and effort. And you'll know the control arms are straight. You can do this job in a few hours with "prebuilt" arms. If you have a big block, pulling the radiator is almost a must due to the clearance with the fan shroud and the upper control arm bolt.