UPGRADED the lower control arm bushings, the a-arm bushings Options

[Batman722]

I was going to do a how-to but was too caught up with just getting this done, I only snapped a couple of pics at the end.
Me, Manny, and Stef knocked this out pretty easy.

I ordered some front suspension bushings from Paul in Poland



here's a pic of the control arm



(taken from this post)

I went from this bushing



to this bushing



and the other



I know the pics I took kinda suck (they're a little messy from the grease too) but I was more concerned about feeling the difference driving with them and then eating.

I have to say after launching a few times on the ride home I can really feel the difference with keeping the wheels on the ground. They really help to reduce wheel hop and it feels great.
The other thing I wicked noticed was how much tighter the front end feels during turns. They keep the front end of the car much more level to the ground and cornering is so much more controled, it's amazing.

also, ride quality was not compromised at all, which I was a bit concrened about.

The entire process took a few hours and air tools made it much easier

This post has been edited by Batman722: Jun 30, 2009 - 8:22 AM

[richee3]

I got started on my bushings Monday afternoon. Within 30 minutes, I had hit huge snags. The bolt on the driver's side that runs parallel to the ground refused to come out, the lower ball joint nuts had rounded off, and the end links, in their usual fashion, stripped out. Turns out that like I mentioned in my last post, the nut inside the subframe had broken free of the subframe and was spinning freely with the bolt. After 4 hours of trying, I put things back together as well as I could and drove to where I work to use their shop. Driving with a loose bolt in my control arm was a bit nerve racking. Not because the car was uncontrollable, but because it was so strangely normal. I knew there was a problem underneath the car but I couldn't feel it from the driver's seat. Then a bunch more stuff happened that I can skip because it's boring and involved lots of dollars being spent, so I'll just get to the pictures because that's what we're all here for anyway.

Rear bushing on the driver's side wasn't really a part of the control arm anymore. It fell out with no effort whatsoever.




This is the ring around the rear bushing that has been discussed before. I didn't even try to press the new bushing in before taking these out, but I had access to a die grinder that made the removal of these rings very easy.


And a picture of the bushings installed.



Due to Murphy's Law hitting me hard, the total time I had to spend on this job was 12 hours. Yeah, 12 hours for a four hour job at most. Let's just say that nothing went properly for me.

The steering definitely feels tighter now than it did before. I currently have no front sway bar end links so I haven't been pushing the car hard, nor have I launched hard to feel the difference yet. Once I get the new end links, I'll do a bit more testing and see how much better these are.