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HELP: vy. hrd time remvng lwer wishbone bshngs

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Willie_P

Willie_P

Jedi Hopeful
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I have a 62 tr4 with the brass/metal bushings in each lower wishbone arm (four total) - these connect to the trunnion pin (I have the "through" type/one piece trunnion pin).

I was using a necked socket as the "pusher" and an oversize deep-well socket as the "receiver" and also using a reasonably sized bench vice (I dunno, maybe 5" wide vice) and then using an old steel tube (about 4 feet long) as a lever-bar on the handle of the vice and still could not push the brass bushing out.

are these things that hard to remove? other tricks? i also tried letting some pb blaster soak on them before trying again - but no luck.

a friend has a 2 ton press we are going to try tommorrow - but worry that might be overkill.

help?

thanks- wes
 
I wish I could offer great wisdom. You seem to have a good setup. Mine came right out. The soaking overnight will help. I recorded this data when I did my front end (solid 3 degree pin trunnion). Use it to ensure you socket is smaller.
Good Luck! Tim
ID, Upper A-arm bushing bore (in)= 1.031
ID, Lower A-arm inner bushing bore (in)= 1.02
ID, Lower A-arm outer bushing bore (in)= 0.745
 
wise man once say, check inner diameter of deep socket you are using to see if there is interference! (will do so tonight). -w
 
The problem I had was that none of my sockets was a precise enough fit on the end of the bushing. If the corner radius of the socket is against the bushing, then it will force the bushing walls out harder against the bore in the arm.

So I turned a mandrel from a short section of mild steel rod (Home Depot), using a drill press and a sharpened file as a crude lathe. Drilled & tapped the rod for a headless 1/4" bolt so I could grip it with the drill chuck; and used a piece of scrap wood to support the other end (so the chuck wouldn't fall out). Took a couple of hours and the result was ugly as sin; but it worked very well. All the old bushings came out easily (and the new ones went in) using my 6" bench vice as a press.
 
One trick I used was that I found washers that were perfectly sized to pull the bushing through suspension arms using a bolt and a socket.

When this trick failed (rarely), I weakened the bushings with some careful sawing with a hacksaw blade - two parallel cuts along the length, maybe 1/8-1/4" apart. No need to go all the way through. Then a sharp chisel, or sacrificial screwdriver was used to remove the material between the two cuts. With the slot out the rest of the bushing will come out easily. Take your time, and you won't mar the arms at all.
 
Did you have any luck getting your bushings out? I've been struggling with mine quite a bit.
 
I tried everything above; i also made a press from raw/threaded stock (5/16") with a stack of proper sized washers and a proper sized (receiving) socket, etc. - actually snapped the threaded rod!!! i even tried the hacksaw suggestion as well.

no luck!

until........I got smart and went to a local driveline shop (the same one that actually pushed my u-joint cups out last year) - they have a ton of mechanical (hand) presses and also pneumatic presses (too much force for this job).

the things they had that i did not were:
1) presses with 36 inch long hand levers and a large gear reduction at the end of the lever so they could "pump" the bushing out in small increments (literally, he gave the lever five 1" movement pumps and each bushing popped out).
2)hundreds of tool grade tapered pushers to find the exact right size to push the bushing out.

nice thing was, this was a very small job for them - they took about 5 minutes to find the right pusher and about 5 minutes (or less) to get all the bushings out. it was pretty much a "walk in/walk out" job. they charged me $10. (and when I took my prop shaft there last year, they did it for free).

i am glad I at least tried it on my own, but I was three weeks into various attempts and had given up by this past tuesday night.
 
Sometimes,often really, I find it easier to put your humility back in your shorts and have other people do some jobs
 
DNK said:
Sometimes,often really, I find it easier to put your humility back in your shorts and have other people do some jobs
Click to expand...

But where's the fun in that? My ultimate (unreachable) goal is to be able to do everything myself, right down to casting replacement parts :laugh:

chctap.jpg


https://www.lindsaybks.com/bks3/chcup/index.html
 
Well, that makes me feel better. I tried again on the vice last night with no luck. After reading your post, I called up a local Audi/VW shop I have a good relationship with and explained my predicament. Their response was, of course, bring them by, no problem.

Humility 1, Pride 0.
 
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