Rear control arm bushing replacement

[XYZ]

I thought I might share a few things I learned recently when replacing my bushings on my rear control arms. First, grease the hell out of all the bushings, inside and out and all the sleeves too. I learned the hardway. I had to remove my control arms twice as I forgot to grease the first time.

I learned a trick to removing the spindle bushings on the outer control arm while making my swap from stock to urethane. The bushings are actually pretty easy to remove once you figure it out. I've attached some pictures to help describe what I did. I started by drilling the rubber to loosen it a little (I'm not sure if this really helped or not but it's what I did) next to the inner sleeve. Next, I attached some vicegrips to the sleeve sticking up. I then heated the sleeve from the underside and interior with a propane torch for a few minutes. Once the rubber started to soften, I used the vicegrip as a fulcrum to pull the sleeve up and out of the rubber. The vicegrip popped off a few times but as I kept heat on it the sleeve slid right out. Then I used a drill with a 1" paddle bit and drilled out the rubber. After that, I placed a hacksaw blade through the remaining bushing and cut two grooves about a quarter rotation apart through the sleeve making sure not to cut into the control arm. Then I took a flat blade screwdriver and started working on one of the grooves until the sleeve let go. The heating and drill took about 5 -10 mins and the hacksaw part took about 10-15 mins. each. Unfortunately, I didn't refine this process until my last bushing. I think it would have gone pretty quick for me had I known a good way to get these bushings out. There is a similar technique in How to restore your datsun z-car but you must hack through the rubber and two layers of metal. I think removing the inner sleeve and drilling was easier. After cleaning up the opening I greased everything, I mean everything and attempted to reinstall the CA.

That's when I found out another trick. The urethane bushings I used, by suspension techniques, have collars on them that reduce the opening of the CA by an 1/8" or more. I couldn't get that thing back on. After an hour plus of fighting, I got pissed off and cut off the collars on the inside part of the CA with a knife and the CA slipped right back into place. You'll notice in the photo's the original bushings don't have a collar just a sleeve. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the bushings so if you haven't seen them the collar part might not make sense. I'm not sure if what I did was right, but the way it sat without my cutting the collars off meant I wasn't driving. Everything seems to be working fine and the new bushings are basically the same now as the original bushings. Hopefully, someone might be able to use this stuff and speed up there bushing replacement. Also, I'm no mechanic so if anyone wants to chime in with other observations, great.

[2ManyZs]

The only thing I did differently when removing the bushings was that I used an air hammer with a chisel bit to remove the outer sleeve. Used a round file to clean up the one or two small nicks from the air hammer and used it to clean out any rust so the new bushings would slide in easier.

On the front I also had a problem getting the new bushings to fit into the frame. What I did was to take a piece of 1/2 inch all thread rod with two large flat washers and two nuts and used it as a spreader on the frame. Put the all thread rod thru the mounting holes with the flat washer and nuts on the inside and tighten the nuts against the frame. It didn't take much to spread the frame enough that the control arm slid right in with the thicker urethane bushings, they are just thick enough to make it very difficult to get past the lip on the frame.

All in all, good advice XYZ.