Tegger finally does his front bushings

Pics here:
http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/

I replaced everything except the shocks and springs.

I must say, very emphatically, that this project would have been
thoroughly impossible had it not been for my DeWalt electric impact gun.
That thing is capable of 325 ft/lbs of torque, and made short work of
all the fasteners. Cost $200Cdn and worth every penny.

To my utter shock and amazement, ALL the bolts came loose with no
trouble at all. A few required a bit of back-and-forth with the DeWalt,
but they all eventually came loose, some in a small cloud of rust dust.

The control arm bushings themselves were another story. My fanciful idea
of using my 6" bench vise to push them out was a pipe dream. It went
nowhere.
It took about 10,000 lbs of pressure from a hydraulic press to budge
them. The big ones came out fairly dramatically, popping their way out
with lots of hammering effects.
There were various items standing on the hydraulic bushing press. The
vibration generated by the movement of the old bushings knocked those
items off the press. Lots of banging and hammering noises as the
bushings inched their way out of the control arms. The garage charged me
$30 total. I gave them $40 since they were the only place willing to do
the job for me immediately.

Had a couple of heart-stopper moments.
1) Radius rod threads badly rusted. Had to use needle file set to
laboriously re-cut threads by hand before new nuts would go on.
2) I collapsed the driver-side balljoint threads through failure to
reinstall old nut upside down when popping taper. Needle file set came
in handy here too. Managed to rescue balljoint threads. New nut visible
in photos was needed because of this problem.

Pass. balljoint popped loose very easily. Driver side wouldn't let go
for a long time, but when it did, the whole neighborhood heard the BANG!

Total time about eight hours, including cleanup afterwards.

Was it worth the money? Eh. Who cares. It's the EXPERIENCE that counts.

 

It makes me appreciate the fact that I don't live in the rust belt any
longer. That job probably would have only consumed four hours down in
these heeyaw pawts...

<G>

JT

 

That is interesting.

Good datum for the archives. Do you know the actual rating
of the press used?

My sense this past spring when I did this job (using long,
high grade bolts and nuts etc.) was that the smaller
bushings were tighter and so harder to push out.

What tool did you use to separate the ball joints?

 

20 ton. They mechanic was guessing he was applying probably a quarter of
maximum force.

For whatever reason, I had the opposite experience. The small ones
pushed out quietly, without drama.

By the way, all my fasteners were OEM.

The same OTC tool as shown on my site. Other than needing to grind the
jaws wider, it fit and worked extremely well. Very little muscle power
was needed to pop the tapers. If Curly's cheapo Princess Auto tool works
this well, it's got to be the bargain of the century.

A related story:

When I bulged the threads on the end of the one balljoint, I still
needed to pop the taper free. The nut would not fit on upside down on
acccount the bulged threads. I had to grind off the castellations so I
could put it back the only way it would go (right side up), and continue
cranking down the balljoint tool. This is the one that went BANG as it
let go.

Well, of course I had to get the nut off again to remove the control
arm, but the balljoint stud just spun in place and the nut was stuck
fast. Then I remembered you had a similar situation during your project,
and somebody suggested to jack the control arm back up again to wedge
the taper into its recess again. I did this, and was able to make the
stud keep still so the DeWalt could buzz the nut off. After that I used
the needle files to clean up the threads.

 

At least an hour (probably more) was wasted with rusted radius rod
threads, and figuring out how to rescue myself from my boneheaded error
of leaving the nut off the balljoint stud when pushing on it.

Tip of the day: ALWAYS put the castle nut back on, UPSIDE DOWN, BEFORE
trying to crank down on the stud! "Upside down" refers to reversing the
nut so the castellations are pointing up towards the balljoint, instead
of down towards the ground. Run the nut on so it's just slightly too far
to be truly flush with the end of the stud. This ensures the balljoint
tool will not load the threads as it bears on the stud.

That OTC tool worked awesomely, as did the DeWalt impact wrench.

 

Yep, I always do that with the axle nut on the tapered units on my
Studebakers. My big project is split ball joint/tie rod boots on my '83
Civic. Damned joints are in perfect condition too!

JT

 

E wrote
T wrote

This is certainly in the ballpark of my estimates for
removing my 91 Civic's control arm bushings.

I think the shop press at the vocational college where I
take automotive courses now and then is also 20-ton. The
students and instructors use it a lot. Makes me glad I did
not buy the12-ton press I was considering. Though I sure
wish I'd had access to it (and knew how to use it!) when I
was doing my suspension renovation this past spring.

All my fasteners were and are OEM, too.

Interesting about your 91 Integra's radius rod threads.
Those were not any kind of problem for me. But as I have
posted in the past, about half the front and rear control
arm bolts on my 91 Civic had to be cut off with a die
grinder. I am going to add your comments about this DeWalt
325 ft-lb torque electric impact wrench to my "suspension
renovation" web site.

The honda-tech.com web site also has reports of guys who
broke the fancy trailing arm bushing tool while trying to
remove the bushings. It's possible they didn't install it
correctly. OTOH, there might be a heckuva lot of variability
in what a car experiences by way of rust.

I remember you have that fancy undercoating put on now and
then. I wonder if this helped keep the control arms bolts
relatively unfouled.

I bought the equivalent to the Princess Auto tool (available
only in Canada) from Ebay and was delighted with it.

Good report.

 

I'm not sure. See this:
<http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/s_old_bolts.jpg>
The two very rusty bolts are the inboard bushing bolts. The mounts
were fairly greasy with rustproofing, but as you can see, somehow
enough water got inside the bushings' sleeves to rust the bolt up.

See the two larger bolts? Those are the damper fork ones.
These are fully exposed to road splash and salt, yet they are
almost free of rust.

I now have a theory. The inboard bushings' inner sleeves are serrated
to make them grip the mount flanges better. These serrations allow
water ingress, and thus rusting. The damper fork bushings are smooth,
and thus form a more-or-less complete seal against water.

What apparently tends to happen with bushings (my understanding) is
that the bolt rusts to the inner sleeve. When you try to loosen
the bolt, the inner sleeve tears away from the rubber, then
spins in place, so the bolt can't back out of its hole without
bending up the mount flanges. I was so concerned about that
happening that I rented a Sawzall, which I ended up not needing.

Now, there was one thing I did to defeat any tendency of the
inner sleeve refusing to part with the bolt: Before I loosened
the bolts, I TIGHTENED them. The reasoning was that if I tried
tightening it, the sleeve would be held fast, and thus would be less
likely to try to turn. Therefore the impact wrench could more
easily tear the rust seal before I loosened it.

More pice:
<http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/t_old_parts.jpg>
<http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/u_new_parts.jpg>
<http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/v_radius_rod_bushings.jpg>

 

For the archives, this pattern of control arm bushing/bolt
rust is consistent with what I found on my 91 Civic: The two
front inboard bushings seized to the bolts, and I cut these
bolts out with a die grinder. But the two front outboard
bolts came free just fine.

This is what I saw, too. Some of the bolts I removed in the
spring are still virtually welded to the inner sleeve of the
bushing.

Sounds like a good idea. I in fact used this intermittently
when doing the die grinder cuts on the seized bushing
sleeves and bolts. I did not cut fully through for all the
bolts but rather tightened and loosened the bolts until I
saw them (through the notches I had cut with the die
grinder) become free from the sleeves.

I saw at least one report in the archives of a guy with an
impact wrench (about 600 ft-lb) who had no luck with the
control arm bolts. But I will mention the technique you
describe and suggest it may be worth renting or buying the
impact wrench and giving it a try. Considering all the other
uses of an impact wrench, it sounds like a good investment.

 

$:

I allowed the bolt to tighten perhaps 1/8 turn, then I backed it off to
its original position. I went back and forth like this several times,
then spun it loose. I figured the rust would be well and truly ground up
by that point.

For each of the inboard bolts it took maybe ten seconds of steady
pounding in forward and reverse before the bolt began to budge. I cannot
imagine what I would have done if I was relying on manual force.

I don't think this degree of control would have been possible without
the power of the impact wrench.

The major drawback of the electric impact wrench is its bulk. You need a
U-joint and lots of room to maneuver it. I could not get enough room to
remove the radius rod nuts with it, so those came off (easily, luckily)
by hand.

From the end of the square drive at the front to the rear casing, it's
almost a foot long, and it weighs about ten pounds.

There's a reason ALL garages rely on impact wrenches the way the human
body relies on air and water.

 

---snippy---

I don't use one. They're for wimps. ;^)

Earle

 

Hey grumpy,

Look around at the auto parts stores. I have found "generic" one to fit
my honda before I found out a good way to knock them apart without
touching the boot.

-Pete

 

Thanks Pete.

My boots are split simply from age as they are the originals that came
with the car in '83. The car sat in the hot TX sun from about '92
through early this year without running. Now, I want to wrap up all the
"loose" ends.

JT

 

This is what I got from Princess Auto. $11.99.

http://tinyurl.com/j8u42

Hasn't let me down yet. Very minimal effort. Works great on Ball Joints and
Tie Rod Ends and doesn't destroy the boot like my old pickle fork did.

Thanks for all the info Tegger!

Terry in Winnipeg.

t

 

I gotta go in there one day...

 

Well they are expanding, but I have the advantage cuz the company started up
in Winnipeg....

They have really good crazy sales on tools and special tools, surplus etc....
Also they offer lifetime warranty on their 'Powerfist' tools. Not a
craftsman, but about 1/3 the price, and still warrantied. If its not a
safety issue, I usually buy these ones.

t

 

My sainted mama grew up in Winnipeg (1930s West Kildonan). But that
doesn't help me here. The closest Princess Auto in Ontario is a
pack-a-lunch drive from me these days.

Y'know, I've never seen land as FLAT as that surrounding Winnipeg.
FLAT FLAT FLAT. Pancake flat. Literally.

You can watch a 200-car freight train go from horizon to horizon, with
nothing to block your view. Ever. It doesn't ever dive behind anything,
it just gets smaller and smaller unitl it disappears in the distance
mirage. Amazing. FLAT, I tell you. FLAT.

"Powerfist"? Could they have not come up with a less melodramatic name?
Sounds like something out of a Japanese Manga comic.

 

Some college students recently measured the variance in the flatness
of a pancake and compared it to the terrain of Kansas. Their results,
published in the Annals of Improbable Results (a real journal), proved
that Kansas is actually FLATTER than an IHOP pancake (but I'm not sure
they found the flattest pancake for their study).
http://tinyurl.com/y5zauw

Ron