Heavy-duty control arms??

[Richard McDonel]

One of my rear 240Z control arms (A-arms) appeared to be be bent, so a friend kindly gave me a spare he had in his shop - thanks Dan.

Anyway, when I removed the old inner bushings on the new arrival, I found the housings to be different than the others, in that the bushing housing has a smaller i.d. My other control arms have a housing i.d. of 30 mm. and my after-market urethene bushings are a perfect fit. This new arm has openings of only 27 mm. Closer examination reveals that this is due in part to the steel used the in the housings being heavier - roughly 3.5 mm wall thickness vs 2.5 on the others. Catalogues I've looked at show the same bushings fit everything from 240 through 280.

I'm wondering if what I've got is some specially built, heavy-duty racing or rallying part. And if so, is anyone making bushings to fit?

Thanks folks.

[LeonV]

You need to remove the metal sleeve before installing urethane bushings.

Look about halfway down the page: http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/suspension/rearend/index.html

With that said, later control arms were beefier than the 240Z ones (bushings are interchangeable).

[240dkw]

Richard: I agree with LeonV it sounds like the outer sleeve is still in the arm. If not bring it back and we will dig another one out of the pile.

Dan

[z boy mn]

I did exactly the same thing, as I didn't realize part of the bushing was still on and the new ones wouldn't fit. And, the one I started with was really really stuck in...it took pliers, vice grips, and a lot of profanity to get it off. The other 3 just slipped off like they were supposed to! Good luck!