Tips on getting the rear bushings out?

[taro]

Hello, I was trying to get my old control arm bushings out and have been struggling. It seems like the metal liner is fused to the control arm. Is this normal? The only thing I can guess is that I bought an extra set of control arms from a junk yard and the guy who took them off did not have an impact wrench and tried heating the bolts up with a torch to try to loosen them. Could the heat have welded the bushing liner to the control arm or am I going about this wrong? Thanks, taro

[Simon]

Nope....it's pretty common from what I hear. Some folks have tried to cut through them with a sawzall CAREFULLY as to not damage the outer sleeve. Others have used an impact gun with a chisel bit to work them loose.

 

The question you've asked is the exact reason why many folks opt to simply buy new arms with the bushings already installed.

[taro]

Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty much committed with buying the extra set of control arms and new bushings--so I hope I can make these work. I guess my backup plan will be to have a shop press out the old bushings from the arms on my pathfinder and press in the new ones if I end up mangling the spare arms that I bought.

[Chriskaw440]

the reason I did my own work with replacing the bushings (cutting them out with my sawzall) was because I felt like the price for new complete ones was pretty ridiculously expensive....since its just a hunk of metal with a rubber bushing in each end....and everywhere I looked ...they were over $120.00 or so each...so over 200 bucks plush shipping in some cases.......no thanks, just ordered all the bushings I needed (4 for the lower arms) from rockautoparts.com for only $64.00 bucks and took the time to do it in my own garage.

 

I know not everyone can "do it themselves" but just saying....my case was a cost issue versus ease of just getting new complete control arms.

 

plus...I like doing it myself especially with the cost of labor continuosly going higher and higher at the repair shops.....

[taro]

You didn't by chance take any pics of how the control arms looked after you removed the old bushings did you? My one link end already looks beat up and the sleeve has not even separated from the control arm opening yet. I'll take another swing at it tonight.

[ILoveMyPatty]

It took me about 15 minutes per sleeve, to get them out. I used a dremel with a cutting disc to cut the sleeve diagonally from one edge to the other. Then I used an air-chisel to hammer it out.

[Chriskaw440]

every time I try to post a photo (even if its a very small jpg file) it says I cant so I gave up....

 

but, I used my sawzall with a small blade for metal cutting and very carefully cut through that sleeve (after using a big screwdriver as a chisel with a hammer to remove most of the rubber bearing and bolt sleeve) and once you cut through the sleeve completely it just collapses in once you give it a few taps with a hammer and screwdriver (or whatever you use to drive it out with) ....but, the NEW bearing will most likely not fit into the opening so you either have to drive it in with a press or grind out the inner surface of the bearing hole with a drum sanding bit on a drill (at least thats how I did it...) until the new bearing can be pushed into place. The new bearings are of course just slightly larger in diameter than the old ones that were just removed.