Has anyone replaced the lower shock bushings in situ? I looked at this yesterday and it cannot be done with sockets/G Clamp. The edge of the bushing is too close to the wishbone base to allow room for the socket. I’m wondering whether a narrow steel pipe could be cut to act as the female side to receive the bushing. A socket should be able to push it through. I’m just not in the mood to remove the springs again.
Gary
x300 ? x308 ?
It is difficult enough with the arm off the car!
Need a press I think
Assuming you’re asking about the rears they are sealed spherical bearings although the black boots look like rubber bushes.
No - I’m talking about the fronts. Looks like springs will have to come down. Aagh. May as well do all the wishbones while I’m there. It will have to wait a short while. I’ve done them before with my press.
G’day Geekay,
I’ve replaced my front shock lower bushes a couple of times using a combo of sockets, washers, a piece of pipe and a long high tensile bolt. It’s tight but doable. I used a little grease between the washers and the socket/pipe. Once the bush ‘cracked’ it was quite easy to tighten the bolt and extract the bush. See the pix of my efforts.
If you jack the car up and support it with axle stands you can then position your jack under the lower suspension arm to support it, so the spring won’t have to come out, while you work on the bush.
I also found that the OEM bushes didn’t last very long so I made some replacements up using the metal parts of the OEM bush, I burnt the rubber out with a gas torch, and finding a poly bush of about the right size and pressing the whole lot together with a large vice. They’ve been fitted now for over ten years with no trouble.
Cheers,
Jeff.
Hi Jeff - Duh! I never thought of the bolt through method. Makes total sense. The key is the narrow walled pipe for the female side. I think I have an old bushing. I’ll have to go to the hardware store and see if I can find some pipe that has a narrow but strong wall.
Thanks…Gary
