91 Civic Lower at Dr. Side Front...

Re having old suspension control arm bushings pressed out
and replaced:

Sounds good. I'll start making gentle inquiries.

 

Would this 12-ton shop press be sufficient for removing old
control arm bushings and pressing new ones in place?
(Assuming I study like mad and secure everything properly.)

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=1667

(Describes a Central Hydraulics A-frame shop press.)

I was at the salvage yard today, where some second hand
front lower control arms with pretty good looking bushings
went for $40 each. Hm. Then I started thinking about having
a shop do them, and what a hassle that is, since I'll have
to bike back and forth between the shop to get my Civic's
control arm bushings replaced. And I sure would like to go
at the rear arm bushings sometime...

At Harbor Freight today, picking up my $7 special coil
spring compressor, I noticed the shop presses and though,
'Ya know, for $100, if I could do this all myself... "

I'm googling and it seems a press this size will work. Just
want more exacting experience at this point on this
particular size of press when used for bushings.

 

Would this 12-ton shop press be sufficient for removing old
control arm bushings and pressing new ones in place?
(Assuming I study like mad and secure everything properly.)

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=1667

(Describes a Central Hydraulics A-frame shop press.)

I was at the salvage yard today, where some second hand
front lower control arms with pretty good looking bushings
went for $40 each. Hm. Then I started thinking about having
a shop do them, and what a hassle that is, since I'll have
to bike back and forth between the shop to get my Civic's
control arm bushings replaced. And I sure would like to go
at the rear arm bushings sometime...

At Harbor Freight today, picking up my $7 special coil
spring compressor, I noticed the shop presses and though,
'Ya know, for $100, if I could do this all myself... "

I'm googling and it seems a press this size will work. Just
want more exacting experience at this point on this
particular size of press when used for bushings.

 

I would think the press would have plenty of muscle. The trick, I
think, would be accumulating all of the bushings and spacers and
chucks and stuff to fit the various applications. But if you did that
one piece at a time, the cost would probably still be less than having
it done at a shop I may order one too, since I will soon need to
press off and on new rear axle bearings for my Chevrolet van.



Elliot Richmond
Freelance Science Writer and Editor

 

If you do much mechanical work you will quickly wonder how you got by
without a press. I have a slightly larger Harbor Freight press and have
used it for all sorts of things, including driving bushings.

My bench vise really appreciates no longer being tortured into
attempting these jobs as well!

John

 

If you do much mechanical work you will quickly wonder how you got by
without a press. I have a slightly larger Harbor Freight press and have
used it for all sorts of things, including driving bushings.

My bench vise really appreciates no longer being tortured into
attempting these jobs as well!

John

 

20 tons, $80? sounds like itd work just fine.

 

20 tons, $80? sounds like itd work just fine.

 

12 tons. Plus I have a coupon for 10% off May 1-8 that might
apply, too.

Thanks for the input. Hopefully within a year I'll
photo-document (love that digital camera) the effort. I
think I'm going to switch the front suspension's springs in
the next few days and take measurements. I don't expect a
change; J. Beam has some long posts on the longevity of the
springs in general (from much of his own work on them) and,
with my experience with the rears, I doubt the springs are
messed up. Eric's theory on the bushings is the one towards
which I lean right now.

I've also been studying Tegger's site on ball joint
separating tools and seeing what's available out there. Ebay
doesn't promise much. I am leaning towards the second-third
tools Tegger, with input from others, lists. I found one of
these for around $20 on the net. Or I'll check out
Autozone's rental.

A friend of mine has a 99 Civic on which I took measurements
yesterday. It too is lower on the driver's side, but the
difference is closer to a half-inch. She's only driven the
car out West, very little snow area.

 

12 tons. Plus I have a coupon for 10% off May 1-8 that might
apply, too.

Thanks for the input. Hopefully within a year I'll
photo-document (love that digital camera) the effort. I
think I'm going to switch the front suspension's springs in
the next few days and take measurements. I don't expect a
change; J. Beam has some long posts on the longevity of the
springs in general (from much of his own work on them) and,
with my experience with the rears, I doubt the springs are
messed up. Eric's theory on the bushings is the one towards
which I lean right now.

I've also been studying Tegger's site on ball joint
separating tools and seeing what's available out there. Ebay
doesn't promise much. I am leaning towards the second-third
tools Tegger, with input from others, lists. I found one of
these for around $20 on the net. Or I'll check out
Autozone's rental.

A friend of mine has a 99 Civic on which I took measurements
yesterday. It too is lower on the driver's side, but the
difference is closer to a half-inch. She's only driven the
car out West, very little snow area.

 

As of yesterday, I successfully, though laboriously,
replaced all the front lower control arm bushings. I had
previously replaced the front suspension's coil springs.
About a 3/8-inch to 1/2-inch height difference still exists
between driver's side and passenger's side, using my crude
measurement techniques. The car does seem to handle better.
It seems to take road bumps with smoother bounces rather
than some clunkiness prior to the new bushings.

For the front passenger side lower control arm bushing outer
sleeves ( = second side I did), the new air hammer-chisel I
purchased wasn't enough. Nor were the new diamond cutting
wheels used on the air die grinder. Instead, I mostly hand
sawed and hand chiseled about one-third of each bushing
outer sleeve, constantly applying PB Blaster. The PB Blaster
was being sucked into the crevices between sleeve and arm; I
think it helped. Had I more time, I would have let the PB
Blaster sit over night. Hammering against a well-fitting
socket (with outside diameter almost exactly that of the
outer sleeve) seemed to finally shake the remains loose. All
together it took hours to remove the two old, bushing outer
sleeves. I think the smaller one was the tougher one,
perhaps because its small size means it has less
"springiness" to it.

I beat up the smaller control arm bushing hole pretty badly
from my efforts. I filed a bit and cleaned both control arm
holes with emery paper.

I heated the control arm for an hour in an oven set to 200
degrees F. I also froze (overnight) the new bushings. I
started the larger bushing by manually hammering against a
well-fitted socket, making sure the bushing was going in
straight. Then I used the socket-bolt-nut-washer method to
press it in. This worked well. While it did not just "slide
in," progress was steady,
noticeable, controlled, and much less labor intensive than
whacking repeatedly with a hammer. I do think the heating
and freezing helped. The larger new bushing was installed
within an hour or so.

By the time I finished installing the larger new bushing,
the control arm was about at ambient outdoor temperature
again. For the smaller bushing, I did try heating the arm
again but hesitated to leave it in the oven for too long
with the new, larger bushing already installed. I do not
think 200 degrees F is enough to destroy the bushing, but I
was a bit worried about degrading the rubber somewhat.

I was on schedule for finishing the one control arm within a
day (12 hours). But then installing the new, smaller bushing
became a problem. I think the control arm hole just had too
many nicks and burrs in it. I could not get the new, smaller
bushing to line up straight for quite awhile. Eventually I
got it started. I used the socket-bolt-nut-washer set up,
and saw some progress. But pressing it in was taking more
force than usual, perhaps because of the aforementioned
nicks and burrs. I was using a roughly five-foot pipe
extension throughout. After getting the bushing in about
one-third of the way, I had stripped the 3/8-inch, fine
thread, Grade 8 bolt/nut.

About the force required to push a bushing into place --
Not having access to a hardware store at 7 PM at night, I
gave up on the socket-bolt-nut-washer method for the
evening. I did try (1) a vise (which seemed to be working
but also seemed to be breaking the vise); (2) a C-clamp
(same); (3) rigging my car, with a jackstand for backup
protection, to apply about a quarter of its weight (about
0.4 ton) to the bushing. This weight did not budge the
bushing.

In the Usenet archives I read about a guy who used the
weight of the "back end" of a Cadillac to press in a control
arm bushing. I googled for Cadillac weights and estimate the
typical Cadillac weighs a bit over twice as much as my Civic
(3.6 tons vs. my Civic's 1.6 tons), so this guy applied
maybe 1.8 tons or more. The guy wrote the Cadillac nearly
lifted up before the bushing started moving.

The 3/8-inch bolt never yielded in tension (that is, pulled
apart). This suggests the force the socket-bolt-nut-washer
setup applied to the bushing was probably less than 7 tons,
by my calculations using various, basic bolt formulae and
theory. The bolt/nut threads are not supposed to strip until
about 9 tons are applied. I figure I had tilted the nut
somewhat when tightening, causing the stripping to occur.
The washers and other doughnut shaped items beneath it were
in fact yielding (= bending) somewhat,
= causing things to get a little uneven. (The sockets by
contrast held up well.) So with the nut under load and
tilted relative to the bolt axis, at high enough loads, the
threads would strip.

The next morning I went to the hardware store and bought two
more 3/8-inch, fine thread, Grade 8 bolts. The second
attempt with a 3/8-inch bolt advanced the bushing further,
about 3/4 way altogether. Then this bolt and nut stripped. I
finally got the bushing fully into place with the last
3/8-inch bolt.

I think if I had taken more care to keep the
socket-bolt-nut-washer setup straight, the two bolts might
not have stripped. New and tougher washers, or bolts of
easier lengths with which to work with the sockets I had,
might have prevented stripping.

To me the lessons here are
(1) For a younger car driven in a non-corrosive
environment, either a 12-ton shop press or the
socket-bolt-nut-washer method might very well work to remove
old bushings. This is not necessarily so for an older car
driven in a corrosive environment such as the Midwest or
Northern U.S.

(2) A 12-ton shop press would likely successfully and easily
install new bushings. I do not think a two-ton press would
always be enough, based on my experience and calculations
and reading about others trying two-ton
presses.

(3) Even if one goes with the shop press, one will have to
buy the sockets or other bushing press accessories.

(4) Based on my calculations of the tons of force required,
I have doubts about the wisdom of using any hammer to beat
bushings into an older control arm already scuffed up from
bushing removal. One has to possess a great deal of upper
body strength and a lot of endurance, not be susceptible to
heart attacks(!), etc. OTOH a newer control arm not beat up
by the bushing removal effort might be a piece of cake.

In other words, perhaps if my 91 Civic were only around
seven years old (vs. 15) and had not been driven in a
corrosive environment for most of its life I would not have
had so much difficulty removing the old bushings.

If I had to do this over for an older, rusty bushing
sleeved-car, I would strongly consider buying used control
arms with not more than a 100k miles on them from a nice low
humidity, non-corrosive climate etc. part of the country.
I'd replace the bushings in these arms at a casual pace.
Remember that the old bushings in the bent junkyard control
arm (the one I used to work out a methodology) came out much
more easily. I think an air chisel would have had those out
pronto. My hammer and old screwdriver worked fine.

Buying spare control arms would keep my car available. Then
I'd just swap the arms.

Buying new arms with bushings already installed IIRC is also
an option. The rear arms for a 91 Civic are less expensive
than the front ones. Considering all the trouble to which I
will go to cut rear control arm bolts out, I think I might
go this direction for at least one of the rear control arms.
The other rear control arm is already a junkyard one whose
bushings may press out easily. From previous work on it a
few years ago, I think the arm's bolts will come free pretty
easily.

 

As of yesterday, I successfully, though laboriously,
replaced all the front lower control arm bushings. I had
previously replaced the front suspension's coil springs.
About a 3/8-inch to 1/2-inch height difference still exists
between driver's side and passenger's side, using my crude
measurement techniques. The car does seem to handle better.
It seems to take road bumps with smoother bounces rather
than some clunkiness prior to the new bushings.

For the front passenger side lower control arm bushing outer
sleeves ( = second side I did), the new air hammer-chisel I
purchased wasn't enough. Nor were the new diamond cutting
wheels used on the air die grinder. Instead, I mostly hand
sawed and hand chiseled about one-third of each bushing
outer sleeve, constantly applying PB Blaster. The PB Blaster
was being sucked into the crevices between sleeve and arm; I
think it helped. Had I more time, I would have let the PB
Blaster sit over night. Hammering against a well-fitting
socket (with outside diameter almost exactly that of the
outer sleeve) seemed to finally shake the remains loose. All
together it took hours to remove the two old, bushing outer
sleeves. I think the smaller one was the tougher one,
perhaps because its small size means it has less
"springiness" to it.

I beat up the smaller control arm bushing hole pretty badly
from my efforts. I filed a bit and cleaned both control arm
holes with emery paper.

I heated the control arm for an hour in an oven set to 200
degrees F. I also froze (overnight) the new bushings. I
started the larger bushing by manually hammering against a
well-fitted socket, making sure the bushing was going in
straight. Then I used the socket-bolt-nut-washer method to
press it in. This worked well. While it did not just "slide
in," progress was steady,
noticeable, controlled, and much less labor intensive than
whacking repeatedly with a hammer. I do think the heating
and freezing helped. The larger new bushing was installed
within an hour or so.

By the time I finished installing the larger new bushing,
the control arm was about at ambient outdoor temperature
again. For the smaller bushing, I did try heating the arm
again but hesitated to leave it in the oven for too long
with the new, larger bushing already installed. I do not
think 200 degrees F is enough to destroy the bushing, but I
was a bit worried about degrading the rubber somewhat.

I was on schedule for finishing the one control arm within a
day (12 hours). But then installing the new, smaller bushing
became a problem. I think the control arm hole just had too
many nicks and burrs in it. I could not get the new, smaller
bushing to line up straight for quite awhile. Eventually I
got it started. I used the socket-bolt-nut-washer set up,
and saw some progress. But pressing it in was taking more
force than usual, perhaps because of the aforementioned
nicks and burrs. I was using a roughly five-foot pipe
extension throughout. After getting the bushing in about
one-third of the way, I had stripped the 3/8-inch, fine
thread, Grade 8 bolt/nut.

About the force required to push a bushing into place --
Not having access to a hardware store at 7 PM at night, I
gave up on the socket-bolt-nut-washer method for the
evening. I did try (1) a vise (which seemed to be working
but also seemed to be breaking the vise); (2) a C-clamp
(same); (3) rigging my car, with a jackstand for backup
protection, to apply about a quarter of its weight (about
0.4 ton) to the bushing. This weight did not budge the
bushing.

In the Usenet archives I read about a guy who used the
weight of the "back end" of a Cadillac to press in a control
arm bushing. I googled for Cadillac weights and estimate the
typical Cadillac weighs a bit over twice as much as my Civic
(3.6 tons vs. my Civic's 1.6 tons), so this guy applied
maybe 1.8 tons or more. The guy wrote the Cadillac nearly
lifted up before the bushing started moving.

The 3/8-inch bolt never yielded in tension (that is, pulled
apart). This suggests the force the socket-bolt-nut-washer
setup applied to the bushing was probably less than 7 tons,
by my calculations using various, basic bolt formulae and
theory. The bolt/nut threads are not supposed to strip until
about 9 tons are applied. I figure I had tilted the nut
somewhat when tightening, causing the stripping to occur.
The washers and other doughnut shaped items beneath it were
in fact yielding (= bending) somewhat,
= causing things to get a little uneven. (The sockets by
contrast held up well.) So with the nut under load and
tilted relative to the bolt axis, at high enough loads, the
threads would strip.

The next morning I went to the hardware store and bought two
more 3/8-inch, fine thread, Grade 8 bolts. The second
attempt with a 3/8-inch bolt advanced the bushing further,
about 3/4 way altogether. Then this bolt and nut stripped. I
finally got the bushing fully into place with the last
3/8-inch bolt.

I think if I had taken more care to keep the
socket-bolt-nut-washer setup straight, the two bolts might
not have stripped. New and tougher washers, or bolts of
easier lengths with which to work with the sockets I had,
might have prevented stripping.

To me the lessons here are
(1) For a younger car driven in a non-corrosive
environment, either a 12-ton shop press or the
socket-bolt-nut-washer method might very well work to remove
old bushings. This is not necessarily so for an older car
driven in a corrosive environment such as the Midwest or
Northern U.S.

(2) A 12-ton shop press would likely successfully and easily
install new bushings. I do not think a two-ton press would
always be enough, based on my experience and calculations
and reading about others trying two-ton
presses.

(3) Even if one goes with the shop press, one will have to
buy the sockets or other bushing press accessories.

(4) Based on my calculations of the tons of force required,
I have doubts about the wisdom of using any hammer to beat
bushings into an older control arm already scuffed up from
bushing removal. One has to possess a great deal of upper
body strength and a lot of endurance, not be susceptible to
heart attacks(!), etc. OTOH a newer control arm not beat up
by the bushing removal effort might be a piece of cake.

In other words, perhaps if my 91 Civic were only around
seven years old (vs. 15) and had not been driven in a
corrosive environment for most of its life I would not have
had so much difficulty removing the old bushings.

If I had to do this over for an older, rusty bushing
sleeved-car, I would strongly consider buying used control
arms with not more than a 100k miles on them from a nice low
humidity, non-corrosive climate etc. part of the country.
I'd replace the bushings in these arms at a casual pace.
Remember that the old bushings in the bent junkyard control
arm (the one I used to work out a methodology) came out much
more easily. I think an air chisel would have had those out
pronto. My hammer and old screwdriver worked fine.

Buying spare control arms would keep my car available. Then
I'd just swap the arms.

Buying new arms with bushings already installed IIRC is also
an option. The rear arms for a 91 Civic are less expensive
than the front ones. Considering all the trouble to which I
will go to cut rear control arm bolts out, I think I might
go this direction for at least one of the rear control arms.
The other rear control arm is already a junkyard one whose
bushings may press out easily. From previous work on it a
few years ago, I think the arm's bolts will come free pretty
easily.