control arm bushings?

[packman]

You need a T-55 or a T-60 socket for the upper trailing arm bolts at the rear pumpkin. The other bolts have 18mm heads, I think. PB Blaster, WD-40, etc.......are all good for loosening those bolts up. You'll also want to jack the car up a bit so you can get under there with a breaker bar. Basically those were my tools when I yanked the trailing arms off of the MGM at the JY. Most of the bolts are in wierd locations; bare that in mind. Much cursing is involved.



Packman

[BerniniCaCO3]

What direction do the new poly bushings go in, for the rear lower control arms?

[BerniniCaCO3]

woohoo! Did all the front bushings over the past 3 days. Lower rear control arms too-- will do rear uppers next week.
Took me 15 hours in all, to be honest.
I've never done a job like this before, never done a ball joint or pulled a control arm. I took 3 hours just getting the front springs back into place! Perhaps there are better compressors than the autozone rental tool, or maybe I'll just get better. The travel was very long, so I had trouble flexing the spring to get into its sockets in both the upper and the lower at the same time, before cranking up the lower; even highly compressed. And then, once I got it in and the lower control arm cranked up with a jack to the point that the spring was safely in both sockets, and I tried to remove the spring compressor: inevitably one of the compressor's arms at the top was captured by the now further-compressed coils, so I had to use a pry bar to push back down on the spring while wiggling it out with another smaller prybar. Very frustrating.

I also did all the ball joints (uppers were still solid, but, I had the new ones in hand... lowers were gravelly and would eventually have been an issue) and sway bar bushings and endlinks. The endlinks were ready to snap; rust had eaten them badly.

I found that an oxyacetylene torch was necessary, but with that, burning out the bushings really did work. Propane was taking ages; I tried it first. Everything from energy suspension was a perfect fit; likewise for the moog ball joints. Moog upper bump stops were NOT a perfect fit though, and I should not have bothered with them.

But, despite all the time it took, it DID all come back together again (which was my greater fear: being laid up for a week because I broke something, had a wrong part, or just couldn't get something to work).

I have a bunch of junk in the trunk, but will clean it out tomorrow and see how it handles! The front alignment is all in spec now, too, even caster has only .2 degrees difference side to side.

[BerniniCaCO3]

by the way, guy who did the alignment said all that grease was not good for my bushings?
Now, out of curiosity-- I am familiar with polyurethane from my sculpting days. I'm actually familiar with it as a cheaper option, where silicone is preferred for greater elasticity, ease of use, temperature tolerance, and durability/lifespan, better in all respects. (can you get silicone bushings? there's a thought).
So what are "regular" bushings made from? What is "regular" rubber?

Anyway, just to double check, but the grease from energy suspension, is MEANT to be lathered onto their bushings and will not chemically attack or dissolve them in any fashion?
I'm pretty sure that what the guy who did the alignment was thinking, was that this was an organic grease lathered onto ordinary rubber bushings; and I do know/have seen motor oil deteriorate many a rubber part.
But not so with ES supplied grease and ES poly bushings, correct?

[gadget73]

Grease is bad for rubber bushings. It won't affect the poly. Its also not a conventional grease, like you'd use for wheel bearings. I think its a silicone grease, but not sure of that. Silicone grease won't eat up rubber either like chassis grease or motor oil or whatever else will.

The idea with the polyurethane is less deflection. I dont know that silicone exists in a high enough durometer (hardness) to make a suitable bushing without just mushing. Really serious handling cars will often have metal bushings, or maybe some really hard plastic like Delrin instead of the polyurethane or rubber.

[86VickyLX]

Oils and greases normally tend to eat at bushings and mounts. Case in point, spongy motor and transmission mounts, and brake components. If the silicone lubricant supplied with the bushings was not meant for them, it wouldn't be shipped with them.

[BerniniCaCO3]

along this line, does a "normal" brake lube (like the tube of 'synthetic' brake lube that smells like used gear oil), eat at brake caliper piston seals?

[BerniniCaCO3]

yeah, older guy at the shop said he used to use delrin for bushings in small british cars back in the day (maybe mg, maybe other brands, don't know). I've used delrin for other oddball machining uses, and it's like pcv pipe in hardness, albeit less brittle maybe. He said that as a result, however, they'd get bent control arms and bent frames where the control arms mounted, instead... you need some flexibility some where.

[gadget73]

I would hope it doesn't. Brake fluid is really horrible stuff, so if a rubber compund can survive that, it can take a lot of things. I believe its EPDM rubber thats used for brake stuff.