Wow what a pain. 2 1/2 hours.
I have the arms off one side
The knuckle is off
The bushings are pushed out
The top bushings are pressed back in and the arm is back on the car.
I am shot, will start back at it after work tomorrow.

I have to get the lower bushings pressed in and the lower ball joint pressed in.
I have a press but man is it awkward.
The top bushings were not that bad, I knocked them in with a hammer.
The bottoms are not so easy so I have them in the freezer shrinking up.

Well the front of the car is done, I did the first side in 4 ½ hours and the other side in 3 but I did have all my tools already out.
I didn’t break any bolts and everything came out fine.
The upper bushings showed the most damage. I destroyed the sleeves getting them out. Good thing I went with rubber bushings.
The bottoms showed some damage but nothing like the top ones.
The ball joints looked ok but I want to lower the car so I put in Rodney’s adjustable ball joints.
Now I need to put shocks and new grease cups on the tie rod ends.
I cut one coil of the front springs, I made a decision and did it. I have coil overs for the back and will install them when I do the rear bushings and ball joints.
Putting the bushings in the freezer made the bushings go in a lot easier.

I am spent and glad that I didn’t have to work till dark again.

I assume by bushings, you mean control arm bushings. Next time, instead of pressing out the old bushings use a torch and burn them. It is much faster and easier also, no chance of destroying the sleeves. It still take a while though. I replaced all my bushing with poly including the sway bar, replaced both tie rod ends and installed 4 ball joints in aprox. 6 hrs. that didn't include an alignment that was for another day.

I bought rubber bushings and they came with sleeves so I was not worried.
My 86GT needs bushings as well and I will probably go with the Polly kit from summit.
This is my first time working on a Fiero suspension so I don’t think I did too bad.
Thanks for the tip about burning them out, did you just leave the sleeve in the control arms?

Night and day, I drove the car to work this morning. No more shimmy in the steering wheel. It’s nice and tight. No more clunk when I use the breaks.

quote Originally posted by Jake_Dragon: No more clunk when I use the brakes.

Those are the Tourist's that you are running over making that sound !

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4.9 Caddy in Garage! Car in Driveway! ACK!

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nice!
I did the same on my rear a-arms - what fun - but I expect the front is even more fun!
and yes, it is a very nice feeling - cant wait to have my front done! (but I can wait to do the work...arg)

I am going to do the rear this saturday, I will be installing Held Motorsports coil overs at the same time.
Putting the bushings in the freezer made it easy to press them into the control arm.

quote Originally posted by Pyrthian: nice! I did the same on my rear a-arms - what fun - but I expect the front is even more fun! and yes, it is a very nice feeling - cant wait to have my front done! (but I can wait to do the work...arg)

quote Originally posted by wetpoop: I assume by bushings, you mean control arm bushings. Next time, instead of pressing out the old bushings use a torch and burn them. It is much faster and easier also, no chance of destroying the sleeves. It still take a while though. I replaced all my bushing with poly including the sway bar, replaced both tie rod ends and installed 4 ball joints in aprox. 6 hrs. that didn't include an alignment that was for another day.

don't use fire to burn them out.
it makes a mess, it's hard to clean up afterwards and you still have to scrape the inside of the sleeve when you are finished.

I will never use the burn them out method again.

Drill around the sleeve first in 3 steps.
Go about 1/3 the way in, then let the drill pit “walk” around the sleeve.

Do it again about 2/3rd the way in, and finally all the way in.

now just let the drill bit keep going around and around the sleeve
and the sleeve will start working it’s way out the other side.

do the same thing around the bushing

5 minutes per side and you’re done.
It also works great on A arm bushing too.

[This message has been edited by buddycraigg (edited 07-21-2004).]

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/043797.html

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