control arm bushing advice

[BJS1977]

i recently bought new poly control arms bushing. my question is, is this something that can be done easily in the driveway over a weekend or so? half the people i talk to say do it yourself and the other half say take it to a mechanic cause its not worth the hassle. any advise would be appricated.

 

[1969D_Floyd]

I recently took my '69 coupe in to a local Chevy dealer for a review of the suspension. They said control arms & bushing replacements would take 15 hours of labor! I did not have them do the work. I am curious to to see other comments.

 

[69MyWay]

This can be a pretty large job. Mostly because the car is down while you are making the change, and that means it is stuck in the driveway with no front wheels. It is also dangerous working around the front springs and the weight of the car.

It is best if you have a press available, or at least a good work bench area, strong large vice, plenty of hammers, pry bars, and if not the tools, at least access to renting good suspension tools.


It is a 15 hour job,,,,,,,I don't think so, but it basically requires yanking the entire front end out and putting it back, then a quick trip to the alignment shop.

I would plan on two weekends. One to tear it down, the work week to run down any extra parts or tools, then the next weekend to throw it together.

 

[vigman]

Have it done!

I just had mine done.... it's about 6 hours just to replace the bushings... and they are pressed in.

There is NO WAY that I know of to get em out while their on the car. ( the bushings that is )


You must release the spring tension to drop the arms out.... If you do not own the proper tools, do not attempt this.. that spring is under a hugh amout of tension and I know of no after market spring compressor that will get around the coils the way it's set up.

You use the A arm as the spring tool with a special adaptor to grab the rear rail of the back of the A arm.

The cost of labor on my job was $250.00 parts were 50 ish. I went with the stock rubber.

Mike

 

[resto75]

I was told by a mechanic that you can jack up the car and then jack under the lower control arm to decrease the spring pressure then remove them one at a time with a air chisel.He said you need to put a small round flat head punch type air chisel tip on and take out the bushing bolt. You then drive out the bushing with the air tool on the metal collar.

Install the new one the same way with a air tool but use some thing like a large socket to insert the bushing. By doing one at a time the whole assembly is held in place. Once one is removed and the new installed,just move on to another one.

I personally have no clue if this can be done or if it is a good way to do them. Maybe someone can respond who has done this.

 

[wolf_walker]

Use heat to remove the old bushings, you can get the little propane torch plumbers and pipe fitters use cheap at most hardware stores, take em outside and proceed to cook the bushing. It will smoke and be nasty, but will almost litteraly pop out. Grease the poly replacements plenty when they go back in too.

It isnt a hard job, put the car up on jack stands, basicaly pull everything off the front suspension. If your interisted in new springs or shocks or any stearing work, now is a good time.
I've done it in a weekend, that's with parts on hand and sandblasting/paintaing everything before it went back on.

I would suspect if the fron bushings are wore out, others are too.

 

[Brutus]

Easy enough

I too was as daunted by this job as the rest, but with a few words of wisdom in my shell like ear I proceeded to do the entire front end myself with little or no problems.
How you remove the springs is up to you. I tied mine up before releasing the tension on them and simply lowered the control arm...no problem there. Now that I've taken a half a coil off each one it's quite simple to remove and install them with no compressors or bindings. 1/2 an hour out and in again.
As for the control arm bushings...that's quite simple as well. The advice I got was to cut them out with a simple 1" timber hole saw. This method works quite well with the added bonus of not having to touch the original steel sleeves. Then it was a simple matter of just sliding the new poly bushes into place. Making sure you grease them before hand.
Any queries so far....ask away.