Control Arm Bushing Swap Preparations
 

As the title states I am looking for any insight as to what tools I need to do this swap and any tips or tricks to help it go smoothly. I am swapping out my 11 year old bushings for a full set of Energy Suspension poly bushings. I will be tackling this project next weekend, so I'm trying to be proactive and leave some time to gather tools and do research before I do the deed.

Anyway, if you have any input on tools or advice that you can give me to help me avoid problems, please let me know. An important piece of info is that I do not have access to a press and will be doing all the work in my garage over the span of (hopefully) two days :fingerscrossed: . My friend that works at a local dealership quoted me 1 hour of labor per arm, so that is out of the question.

The tools I have or can get from autozone are: Propane torch (for the lowers), ball joint separator, upper control arm bushing remover, and the usual sockets, ratchets, torque wrench, and other tools. Here's the link to the bushing remover from Autozone: http://www.autozone.com/autozone/acc...-Tool/_/N-26rb

The reason I am posting on here is because I feel like my thread would just get lost and ignored in the Suspension & Brakes sub. Plus I feel as though a lot of you have done this swap before and would be able to give slightly more helpful advice.

You almost need a press for sure. If honda will do it for 1 hr at 120 and hour thats not bad considering you will have to press some out. Even if you burn out the old material you will still have to remove the inner ring with either a air chisel or something. Putting them in is easy but even the front compliance bushing needs to get pushed in

Maybe remove all the arms and bring it to a machine shop and let them do it?

If you look at some arms its tricky to get it done. I was thinking of making a tool to do it but since my car has to be down i decided to pass

if i could do it all over i'd just skip all the bushings save maybe the offset upper arms from GTMotoring and doing fresh compliance bushings. i think the rest were a waste of time, sweat, and money.

you will need a press to or a very strong impact to get the bushings out. turning a socket or wrench to press out the bushing is doing it the wrong way it will work but you're killing yourself to do it.

Hmm okay, would this work? http://www.harborfreight.com/6-ton-a...ress-1666.html
I'm not too worried about reliability as long as it can get me through this job.

that would work so long as you have the correct dies to press them out and the cups to hold the arm up

For the Energy Suspension bushings, I believe only the uppers require the outer shell to be removed(pressed out). You can use the trick Rob did using a washer, sleeve and threaded rod to press it out. Burning out the other bushings is a bitch. It'll be good to have a file to get rid of the last bit of rubber that's left behind in the metal sleeve.

Just a heads up, you may need a sawzall to cut the bolts thru the compliance bushings (they almost always seize). The bolts weren't properly lubricated with antisieze at the factory, which causes this problem. Use a lot of PBlaster and see if you get lucky. When I did all my bushings earlier this year, I ordered all the cam bolts in advance (which took 2 weeks to arrive). Luckily none of mine were seized and still have the parts in the original packaging. If you end up needing these in short order, send me a PM.

Not a fun job but it can easily be done without a press. If I remember correctly and assuming you have the "current" version of energy bushings, you only need to remove the bushing sleeves from the upper a-arms and one in the rear lower a-arm. You need to retain the inner sleeves for everything els. To remove without a press: burn the inner sleeve and bushing out, cut a slit in the inner sleeve (being careful not to cut past the sleeve and into the a-arm itself) using a hand saw or sawzall, then tap out the sleeve with a chisel/screwdriver. It's very easy and takes little time. You will need a bench vise (or something similar) to press some of the new bushings in.

Another tip: One of the rear lower a-arm bushings is composed of four pieces (refer to the energy instructions for details). After initially burning the bushing, use a ball joint fork and hammer to remove the first two inner sleeves. I initially tried using a crowbar, chisel, screwdriver, etc. to "pry" it out, like the instructions state; that was a waste of time.

And as was said before, the caster bolts are infamous for seizing. I tried using heat, penetration fluid, and an impact gun... nothing worked. Ended up purchasing two new caster sleeves and cut the old ones out.

Have fun! :LOL:

Use a press. A reasonably cheap way to get dies is to use sockets and sand (use a bench sander) them down to the proper size. Took me a few hours for all of them and was easy.

I have a set of compliance bolts and eccentric washers if anyone wants to buy them. They are new from honda

Is there any risk of knocking out the other sleeves when using the chiseling approach? Or are they in there pretty well?

I finally took the plunge a couple weeks ago and started the bushing overhaul on the S. It's been a very slow painful learning process for me, but recently took a turn for the better. I made the mistake of going into this project overthinking everything and thinking that it was going to be a complicated process and the only way to get the bushing sleeves out was to press them out. I was very wrong. I had been slowly making progress on my bushings over the last two weeks and mulling over ways to press them out. Then the other night things finally clicked for me :light: I went to lowes and bought a nice little Bostitch chisel to replace the shitty flathead that I had been using and went to town on them. Before I knew it I had 4 of the upper control arm sleeves out in a little under an hour. Now I have six arms done and only four lca's to go! I never knew such a small tool (chisel) could make such a big difference. :dance2:

**Quick question, on the rear lowers is the metal sleeve for the camber adjuster bushing supposed to come out?

**Edit** I just realized reading back through your comments that some of you mentioned the chiseling approach and that I read over it, but didn't retain the info. Damn you selective hearing (reading?)!

I was going to try to press them out with a hand bottle jack and a jig

Post some pics if you can as I will be doing this as well


What are you replacing it with?

I am replacing my oem bushings with a full set of front and rear Energy Suspension bushings. Depending on what brand you go with, install may be different. Some brands have you remove certain metal sleeves whereas some require you to burn out the rubber and leave the metal sleeve. If you were to install a set of ES bushings you would be able to do all of the upper control arms with just a chisel and steel mallet. On the rear lowers you will be able to use the chisel and mallet on the far right one, but you will need to use a ball joint fork to separate it since it is made up of two halves pressed together. ES' instructions tell you to leave the compliance bushing's (at strut position) metal sleeve in, but I'm not sure about the sleeve at the camber adjuster position (straight up from the compliance bushing). For the front lowers ES instructs you to leave all the sleeves in, so there isn't any need to press anything out on them, just burn the rubber out.

I will using power flex bushings. I believe those you remove all the sleeves and leaving the arm bare and clean it up and press it in

I just did this in my track car except i used the spoon rubber replacements. I had access to a metal lathe which made it a breeze being able to turn up my own dies.

i will going down this path too. but instead i will just keep the OEM bushings. please document! my compliance bushings are frozen so ill have to cut out. did you have to as well? or were you lucky enough that they werent seized?

Luckily none of mine were frozen. Why are you going with oem? I'll post a few pics in a couple minutes

i have a used but in good condition set of control arms with good bushings in it. and most people have advised OEM is good. so i will stick with them. dont forget to put some anti seize on! especially on that compliance adjustment bolt and bushing.

I have a set of compliance bushing oem bolts if you want to buy them. They are just sitting here

Can any of you offer any advice on how to press in the new bushings? I can't seem to get any of the bushings in the lower control arms. I've tried pressing them in by putting a rectangular steel block on top of the bushing and using my little 6 ton a-frame press to press it in, but only one side ends up going in and it actually cut one of the bushings last night :( it's only 1/4" or less, but still not good. I'm using plenty of lube, but I just can't seem to get both sides to go in evenly. Should I take the sleeve out of the bushing or leave it in when I'm pressing them in?

use the old ring from the old bushing you pressed out. it should be the perfect size for it. https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/935...ance-bushings/ enjoy!

when i installed the powerflex ones i just lubed the bushing and put each side individually then slide the metal collar in afterwards

ill be skipping the whole process and putting in a different set of arms. lol

There's lots of good advice above.

Best advice of thread:


Here's my bushing how-to: http://robrobinette....000Bushings.htm

http://robrobinette.com/images/S2000...gs_Removed.jpg

Not worth the time huh? I figured with a old chassis this would be good to do

https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/102...d-progression/

its on the second post. im just making one huge thread of my repairs and upgrades as i do autocross.

heres my current work progress. i just got started tonight. took me an hour to cut out the compliance bushing. i got a used set of arms with relatively low miles. i will be cleaning and polishing the bolts and eyelets of each component and anti seize. i wonder if i can use something to wrap the joints up with so i can keep debris from getting in. should i apply anything else? i may rub some vasoline on the assembly afterwards to keep the elements out. i figure id rather deal with some vasoline than have them get all weathered and dirty. lol

Even with my ridden hard 01 all the old bushings were good other than the compliance bushings.

The grease zerks allow you to pump in clean grease and push out the debris and prevent squeaking. Their install is worth the effort.

I've done this job, it's very much so a job.
http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/IMG_1102.jpg
http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/IMG_1105.jpg
http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/IMG_1098.jpg
http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/IMG_1062.jpg
Replaced every single bolt with a new one
http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/IMG_1060.jpg
http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/IMG_1023.jpg

http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r...1/IMG_1193.jpg

I will say with the poly bushings everything moved much more freely. Not sure how that translated to the feel but when changing shocks and such there was zero binding or pushing/pulling like before

The car.
http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r...E9C04CCD9A.jpg
Replaced by this
http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps16d86aab.jpg

Josh

Would you say its worth wild to change it out? I figure old rubber is old rubber and this would be a good winter project to do.

Did you use zero fittings like rib suggested?

If your car has any seized adjuster and you have the means (tools) to tackle the job then yea it may be worth it to gain back the alignment adjustablity. Before doing the swap I had both caster compliance bushes seized and also the right rear lower control arm adjuster seized. I had to cut the bolts to get the arm off. I used my cousins shop and spent a whole weekend on it. I used the supplied grease and never had a issue with squeaking the remainder of owning the car. Just put it on thick. i choose to spend the $200 on all new bolts just because the original ones where 10 years old. I liked the fact that I could easily move the arms when doing alignments and I liked the idea of being able to simply slip the bushings out and replace them if I saw fit. That's much better then having to push the old ones out.

I almost swapped the arms from the ap1 to the cr (well the ones that are the same) so I would have poly bushing on it but I talked my self out of it due to the amount of work it takes.

If I was budgeted and did it again I might just do all the lower arms. The top arms showed very little wear even on my 130k mile S2K.

I was very anal about that ap1 and seriously replaced just about every mechanical part on it over the 4 years I owned it. my CR is still pretty new so I haven't got in that mind frame of replace everything yet.

Josh, how'd you get your lower control arm bushings in? I'm still stuck on mine and will be trying again this afternoon. I had an idea that just might work, but I'm not sure. My idea is to get the oem bolt, two decent diameter washers, and a nut and tighten to create a makeshift press that will hold the bushing in place.
Btw nice 949's :drool: I can't wait to get mine back from sandblasting, so I can paint them and get them on the S.

you should read that link that Robrobinette posted. he shows you how.

Rob's link only thoroughly covers the upper control arm bushing install. For the lowers he just has the energy suspension instructions posted on there.

Josh

Living in California all my bolts are all good. I did my compliance bushing only and debating if I want to do the rest this winter.

Seems like a good project to keep me occupied

Luckily I work at a auto shop so press and stuff isn't a issue. I've taken all the arms and bearings out before just need replaced the bushing. If it's like doing a wheel bearing I would say its fairly easy if I have the right dies

Josh

Living in California all my bolts are all good. I did my compliance bushing only and debating if I want to do the rest this winter.

Seems like a good project to keep me occupied

Luckily I work at a auto shop so press and stuff isn't a issue. I've taken all the arms and bearings out before just need replaced the bushing. If it's like doing a wheel bearing I would say its fairly easy if I have the right dies

Yea, I haven't done any of the lower arm bushings except the compliance bushings which I did a couple of years ago and didn't document. After seeing how good the upper OEM bushings looked I'm in no hurry to do the rest of the lower arm bushings.

Looking good doesn't mean much I think

Rubber gets hard through time and may look good but not function well

I tried prying on the rubber to check and it's as hard as a rock

Okay guys, I have some news. I talked with energy suspension directly today about installing their bushings. I started the conversation feeling like I would get all the answers I needed and left the conversation feeling less confident about their product than when I went into it. Basically they can only go off of the online instructions that they post and don't have much hands on experience with the product other than that. While I was looking over the online instructions and trying to find out which metal collars needed to be pressed out I realized that the online manual is different than the paper manual that was sent with my bushings. This made me feel even more uneasy about the bushings. The only reassuring news I got was confirmation that the bushings should be able to be started by hand and not resisting as much as mine have been. Other than that the customer service rep just recited the instructions back at me and told me that it would be helpful to just go around to all the bushings with a caliper and take measurements and measure the hole they are supposed to go in in order to tell if I need to keep the metal collar. :/

EDIT: ES Online Instructions
Aaaaand pics of my set of instructions received with the bushings..
Attachment 191900
Attachment 191901
Attachment 191902

**Update** I ended up getting 2/3 bushings in on the front lowers. I just had to get them at the right angle, use lots of lube, and take out the ES metal sleeve. I'm about to go out and work on the compliance bushings now, but I feel like those aren't gonna be as easy.

It's very tough rubber. I don't think it was ever soft. My primary reason for replacing the bushings was to replace torn or damaged bushings. Only the compliance bushings were torn.