I was getting a popping noise on braking from the left front. On inspection I found a lower control carm bushing ALL THE WAY GONE. No rubber only the sleeve. So I decided to repair it. I spent a few hours after work removing the front left side in my garage and it was 106 degrees in there! Does the bar come completely out of the lower arm? I read a good write up on removal and replacement of bushings and ball joints, seems pretty straightforward. What I thought was going to be a simple easy job will be a complete front control arm(all 4) rebuild plus stabilizer bushings. I am sure it will benefit but does everything on these cars snowball like this? I really enjoy working on it, but I may be a few weeks finishing it up with this heat! Oh well less to do this winter!

 

To answer your question, YES, everything does pretty much snowball with ANY mechanical system, not just Corvettes. I overhaul aircraft for a living and we have whittled the evaluation process down significantly because the military no longer wants to pay for putting all the worms back in the can every time they open it, so we've gotten out of the habit of opening the can for fear of what we'll find. Kinda scary...
I went through all the bushings in the front and the back of my C3 within a couple years of buying the car just because I knew that rubber doesn't last forever. I replaced mine with poly so I didn't need a press; I just drilled all the old rubber out and pushed in the new bushings by hand. If you haven't done the rears yet you probably ought to take a look back there also just for safety's sake.
I know what you mean about the weather...we drove through TX/OK/KS last summer....yeeeooowwww!! At my age if it was me I'd park the shark and wait till winter!!

 

Poly only can also be done with a $7 hole saw & penknife ... no press, no jig, no fixture, no fire, no air chisel ... no fubar bent control arms. Poly only

 

Yea the snowball question was tongue in cheek. I have it all apart, and am doing all the bushings and ball joints at the same time, I don't want to have to mess with it again for many years(if ever). I am using rubber on the C arms and poly on the sway bars.
I am doing the trailing arms this winter. And it is still hot. Gonna be 106 today with 60 percent humidity! Yuck!

 

With the polys, I just take the bushing out of the metal shell they come with and push them into the old shell for the rubber ones still in the control arms? Its that simple? They are on the way from Summit.

Also Many folks here said the ball joints will tap free with a hammer....I dont think they have ever taken off 30 year old ball joints that have NEVER been off the car. It was all I could do with a large hammer and a pickle fork. They are all off now(ball joints destroyed but old), so its clean up and repaint time then reinstall(with new poly bushings and sway bar bushings and new moog ball joints) , I want to drive it!

 

As for your question about the poly bushings, YES, they really are that simple- they just press by hand right into the old bushing shells.If your existing ones are so augered-out that they don't fit tightly though I'd have those pressed out and replaced with the new bushing shells that come in the kit. The worst thing that I've experienced with mine was that the retainer bolts at the front and back of each control arm were constantly trying to unscrew themselves, which I eventually got under control by using red loctite and new split lockwashers on each one. If you really wanted to get serious I suppose you could drill holes through the bolt heads and safety wire them but that hasn't been necessary in my case. I just greased up the bushings real good with the silicone grease provided and they've been fine. They don't squeak either.
Have fun and hydrate hydrate hydrate!!!!

 

I had a poly bushing unscrew itself also lost bolt and poly insert had to buy new pair I am told that if you tighten the bolt with the weight of the car on suspension this helps that so i took off tire and put car on floor jack made it easier to get to bolts did thread lock also I am not sure if I would use poly again was scary since I had gone about 20 miles and found that had to get towed home

 

Not all poly control arm bushings come with saw-toothed inner sleeves. An oversight IMCO.

 

I pride myself by doing my own work, howerver icheated on to bushings. I took all four control arms to a garage and they only charged me 80.00. A bargain since it was three hours work.

 

Don't forget to use loctite on the end bolts for the control arms bushings, or they will back out!

 

What size holesaw? Do you remember? 1 3/16? The 1 1/4 I have is a little large.

 

I have the passenger side control arms back on the car and will install the other side and attach the spindles and put the wheels back on tomorrow morning. I used all poly from energy suspension. Used Moog Ball joints....this job was a chore! After I cleaned and repainted them, I sat in the living room floor for the past 2 evenings installing the bushings and ball joints, my daughter thought they were brand new!! Putting it back together is the easy part! Hope to take her for a spin tomorrow night after running her to the shop for an alignment. Its been down a month, but with the temps around 105 plus every day I have not missed driving it in the oppressive heat since my task to fix the A/C has not been done yet. Thanks for all the help here on the forum!! Great place for info!!

 

I am using it and torquing them, but I could not begin to get a torque wrench on the passenger side front bolt on the upper arm(too close to radiator) so I did it before install. On the rest I will remove the bolts and add red locktite then torque when she is on the ground tomorrow. Thanks!!!

 

REMEMBER- Do not torque your control arm bushing bolts till you put the car back down on the ground under its own weight. Once you have it on the ground then tighten/torque the bolts.

 

I knew that, but there is absolutely NO WAY to do the uppers with the engine and radiator in the car, I tried and had to remove one of them to torque it. I have seen it done both ways with no problems, but I have no clue how you torque the tops with them installed, there is just zero room and very little on the back of the uppers with the headers on. I Used red lock tite on everything. It is on rails now. I spent 11 hours in the garage in 100 plus degree heat putting it all back together yesterday. It goes to the alignment shop tomorrow, but it sits perfect and rides and drives straight. The only issue was I pushed the rotor shield in and it was rubbing on the initial test ride, fixed it and all was good!!!

Edit: The bushing bolts do one thing, they snug the outer retainer against the inners sleeve and force it against the shaft. and lock it there via the teeth on the inner sleeve so the inner part of the shaft will not turn inside the inner sleeve. After torqued the shaft and outer retainer will be locked together via the inner sleeve. I have read every thing I can find on why the weight needs to be on the arms before torquing and find no hard facts other than "thats just how it is done" (and based on rubber bushings)Geometrically speaking, the force applied to the shaft with loose bushings bolts will force the bushing where they will seat... I understand slightly that reasoning with rubber, however with the poly, you want the bushing to move, The inner sleeve must be centered and torqued in order for that to happen. I read the manual and Aim but one thing is evident, poly did not exist back then and the different properties that should call for different assembly. If a loose ploy bushing were not torqued until wieght was applied it would have an angle of offset basically, especially on an old control arm. If the sleeve is tightened before weight transfer the bushing would have a positive center to pivot, especially on a less than perfect arm. So by doing the math, I see no drawback in torqueing them first(rather a benefit) with Poly especially.


Ok one last observation(verified through further investigation)....On rubber bushings...If they are torqued before loading, with the inner sleeve not turning on rubber bushings, when the load is applied it could cause the rubber to tear from the sleeve and ruin the bushing. On Poly the bushing is designed to turn on the sleeve and when the load is applied it will just turn like it is designed and no harm will be caused. I think the lowering thing is a must with Rubber since it is locked in place by the inner sleeve, but irrelevant when using greased poly bushings. The physics on it are fairly simple.

 

81pilot,

Your comments are interesting. I replaced the front end bushings in my 79 about three years ago and went with poly, including the sway bar. I too put the car on the floor prior to torquing the nuts because that was the recommendation. I took the radiator and shroud out early in the process because it made getting to the bolts so much easier. I took the old bushings out with an air chisel and put the new ones in with a 4lb hammer and collar. Everything went well except that there was one nut I couldn't get the torque wrench on, so I just guessed. I didn't know the poly bushings were designed to rotate around the inner sleeve. I can tell you that it made the car handle like new and I've had no problems with nuts backing off or bushing sleeves coming out...maybe I'm just lucky.

I just rebuilt the rear end and would recommend rubber. The reason being is that the forces are different. There is twisting on the trailing arms and leaf springs, and rubber gives an overall smoother ride and handling. I'm very pleased with the combination of poly in the front and rubber in the back. I did use poly for the snubber bushing on the differential. I'm there are others that have different opinions, but that's my two cents. Good luck.

 

Rubber on the rear makes perfect sense, Thanks!!

 

I'm doing my 81's front end now...it's about 98 here in Florida and damn it's hot and humid in the garage!! I'm having a hell of a time getting the springs back in correctly, in the frame pockets in particluar. I'm off today to find a better spring compressor, I tried the local parts store loaner tool, but couldn't get the SOB out through the control arm when it was installed (it's a funky design with a plate on one end), it was to damn big to fit through the hole. I also tried using the floor jack, but can't get the bend right to get the springs in the frame pockets....all this with sweat running in your eyes son-of-a....!!!!

 

I went through the same dance, it was a nightmare. It took two and a half hours for the first spring, including a trip to the Autozone to borrow a spring compressor...which I couldn't remove with the spring installed correctly.

Here's what worked for me: I jacked up the lower control arm just enough so that I could set the spring correctly in the upper frame pocket and wedge it in the front part of the lower arm pocket with a good shove and/or prybar thru the lower hole, so that it would stay in place. Then I used a small bar clamp to hold the spring in that position while I jacked the LCA up.





I jacked carefully and tightened the clamp a little as I went. As you work the sring into the pocket on the LCA, the bottom coil will hang up on the rear of the lower hole; at some point as you raise the LCA, you will be able to reach through the spring with a pry bar (I used the handle of a breaker bar) and lever that bottom coil up over the lip of the hole, and the spring will jump into place. Jack the LCA up enough to get the ball joint in the spindle and open a malt beverage.

First spring: 2.5 hours. Second spring: 5 minutes.

Cheers,


Chris

 

You should consider powder coating the control arms while they are out. I wish I had done mine that way the first time