How to…….R & R Front Lower Inner Suspension Bushings…Part 1

How to…….R & R Front Lower Inner Suspension Bushings…and Sway Bar Bushings Part 1

1. Jack up front end and set jack stands in side jacking notches, let front suspension drop, remove wheel, gather tools and parts. Take pictures of everything !

2. Loosen lower arm to ball joint bolts, arm to frame mount bracket bolts, cross brace and sway bar link bolts & nuts. Use a small trolley jack to raise and “neutralize” spring & suspension pressure on lower arms, twist bolts with fingers until they turn, then it will be easier to remove bolts. The two bolts that go thru the ball joint & lower shock/coil bushing are DIFFERENT sizes, keep them separate, there are also 2 shim packs, on each side of the lower ball joint, you MUST keep them together and aligned, they have a large hole in one end and a small hole in the other. When these two bolts are ready to be removed, I used a pair of long tapered punches to push the bolts out from one side, replacing the bolt with the punch, keeping the shims and parts in position without dropping them. Remove bolts and both lower arms.

3. This is why I needed to replace my bushings…THIS is a bad bushing…it squeaks and wears front tires out on the edges.

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4. The hardest part of this whole job was getting the old bushings out. There is barely any edge to use a press to push these bushings out, I tried with a shop hydraulic press and ended up with the arms sliding off the press as the gage went up, so as to not damage my $$$ Ferrari parts, I decided to destroy the old bushings piece by piece …..removing the outer flat washer first, then drilling the rubber out of the center, then CAREFULLY cutting a relief slot in both ends of the outer shell of the old bushing. It was a bit of labor being careful, but I billed myself zero $ for my work….I am cheap. And, it worked !

5. Flat washer off, inner rubber drilled out and inner sleeve out.

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6. Red lines indicate where a press needs to support, not much room and those are my relief cuts which allowed me to punch out the outer sleeve.

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7. So the old bushings are out, I used the bench vise to start the new bushing in the correct way, ( take pictures of your old arms !! ), then finished pressing in with the shop press.

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Part 2 Next….

 

How to…….R & R Front Lower Inner Suspension Bushings…and Sway Bar Bushings Part 2

1. Reinstall your new bushed arms into the frame brackets, first one side, then the cross brace, then the other, leaving all hardware loose for now. I cleaned, and wire brushed the inner surface of the frame brackets first, then brushed silicone paste ( red lines ) on the inner surface to make them slide in easily. Now swing up the ball joint ends,…. remember when I talked about the tapered punches? If you pushed them in correctly, you can now wiggle them loose and use the real bolt to carefully push the punch out, keeping the shims in place and threading thru the lower shock bushing and ball joint one at a time !

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2. When all the parts are gone from the floor, and your front suspension looks just like it did before you started, snug up your hardware but do not tighten. First, use your trolley jack to raise the suspension under the ball joint/lower shock bushing to just take the weight off of the jack stands. Doing this relieves the “twist or torque” from the arm to frame bushing, smack the bracket or arm a couple of times with a brass hammer which allows the bushing to “center” without tension, so the bushing will act with the same resistance whether your wheel travels up or down, and THEN tighten the (yellow circle) bolts and the rest of the hardware. Lower the trolley jack.

3. You are done with the arm bushings, however, while you are already dirty, let’s do more…..sway bar link end bushings,…. clean out the loop and install 2 new bushings on each end, use the trolley jack again to adjust the tension/length to make it easier to R & R the link bars, then the big split bushings on the front sway bar, bolts out, let the bar hang on the links, off with the old and slip the new ones on, bolts back in.

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Questions…..just ask.

I did this quite some time ago, but I think I got it correct, and no, I am not restoring the car, just fixing things that need fix’in, so I did not clean the old parts, the car has a complete wax undercoat and the metal looks great when it does get wiped off, but if start with cleaning one piece, then another piece, then another……I just don’t want to get started on that.

Gary

 

Your welcome......yup, the bushings were an "emergency" repair, early in ownership I heard a new squeak and saw the front tire wearing wrong, so I just did what needed to be done. Still needs lower shock bushing, (which I already have), upper inner bushings, and spring rubbers top & bottom, ball joints still ok. Just add it to the list......

Gary

 

Rick, I got the standard front kit from Superformance in UK, along with front lower shock bushings and front rotor grease seals. I shopped $$ and it was the best deal.
Rear suspension is down my list a bit..

Gary