Ben Sale's white 1990 NA6

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Mon May 30, 2011 10:00 pm

This afternoon I replaced the two front shock bushes. In order to do this I had to remove the front shocks so I thought I'd do a quick photo guide to that too.

Firstly don't follow the guide in the Haynes manual... If you do you'll stuff up your wheel alignment like i did on the first side I did when you loosen the LCA bolts... And stupid me didn't think to mark anything either... You don't actually need to touch the lower control arm at all... It's been about 18 months since i fitted my suspension so I forgot this...

First step is to jack the car up safely (I always find the front a pain due to how low the car is and the lip) and put it on stands, remove the undertray, then disconnect the swaybar from the endlink. I also unbolted it from the chassis so I could move it out of the way of the control arms.

Next undo the two nuts in the engine bay at the top of the shock.

Then remove the bolt at the base of the shock.

Next remove the long bolt which runs between the two bushes on the upper control arm. Before I removed this I placed the scissor jack underneath the lower control arm. This is because when you remove this bolt the whole assembly will drop down quite suddenly when you get the bolt out. The long bolt is also a lot easier to remove when the hub and control arm is supported, if it is not supported you'll probably find you need to use a punch to remove it.

Then lower the control arm down via the scissor jack (you could use a trolly jack but i only have one and i decided to leave it for additional support under the car. When you've lowered it enough you will be able to pull the shock out.

And here is my bush... No wonder it was making a lot of noise...

The process of removing the actual bush was a lesson in using the right tool for the job... I stuffed around for ages trying to remove the bush using various unsuccessful methods... I just didn't have the right tool. I remembered that the MX-5 club actually own a bushing tool and President Murray Finlay is the custodian of that tool and happens to live five minutes down the road from me... So a quick drive in the Alfa to his place... Once back it took me literally two minutes to pop the bush out.

And to put it politely the bush was stuffed.

Installing the new bush in the shock is quite simple with a vice. I put a bit of grease on then first popped the bush part in. I then got the metal sleeve insert and put in in the same way with the vice. It took about a minute of fiddling to get it all to sit correctly

And then back together it all goes. As always I applied a good amount of copper grease to all bolts which I had removed before I put them back in and I also cleaned it all up a bit. Like Bob I found an obscene amount of mud under the car, this in-spite of going to the carwash and high pressure hosing it down after the motorkhana.

The other side was the same as this, with the right tools, preparation and without any problems I would say you could do this job in under two hours start to finish. This guide will work for anyone installing new front suspension too =)

CheyneX5 · Postby **CheyneX5** » Mon May 30, 2011 11:34 pm

Fantastic Ben!

Does it feel any different?

Postby **Okibi** » Mon May 30, 2011 11:48 pm

Nice write up, that's the same way i've always removed the shocks, think I got the technique from Keith Tanner's book.

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Mon May 30, 2011 11:59 pm

I've only dríven it around the block as the alignment is way out on the front right... I'll try and sort that out tomorrow. It didn't make any noises though =) The one thing i did notice was that it felt like I had power steering as I also fitted my new tyres!

Thanks! It's a really quick and easy technique, so much better than the way the Haynes manual says to do it (loosen the LCA bolts and lever the it down). Once I remembered what I was doing the second side took maybe 5-10 minutes to remove the shock =)

surok · Postby **surok** » Tue May 31, 2011 10:17 am

nice work ben!
because of your valiant efforts, i will give replacing my bushes a go.
seems easy with that tool. i think my mechanic has one.
and thats a f**ker about being sideswiped! that really sucks.
but its good that you were able to polish out the scrapes pretty well.

slug_dub · Postby **slug_dub** » Tue May 31, 2011 12:01 pm

Busy busy Ben

When I changed over to the Billies late last year I found the bushes pushed in by hand without too much resistance... must have been a much tighter fit on yours!

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Tue May 31, 2011 1:44 pm

With the bushing tool it was really quite easy. I'm sure some of the bushes on the car would be a bit harder to get to and get out though... That being said I wouldn't be scared to do the job by myself providing I had the right tools. Yeah... Although every time I look at that side of the car now it makes me sad as I can see the dint and the less obvious scratches I couldn't get out. :cry:

Interesting that your bushes were much easier to get in... Were the ones you took out as bad as mine? I found it interesting as the shocks have a lot less kms on them than all the other bushes yet were the first to go... I guess I could have tried to put the replacement ones back in by hand, I'm just a fan of using mechanical labour rather than my own when i can

slug_dub · Postby **slug_dub** » Tue May 31, 2011 1:54 pm

Yeah the original Billie bushes were easily as crappy as yours. :lol:

I was surprised how easily the new ones went in, I was expecting something like the pain associated with control arm bushes.

-alex · Postby **-alex** » Tue May 31, 2011 2:10 pm

surok wrote:nice work ben!
because of your valiant efforts, i will give replacing my bushes a go.
seems easy with that tool. i think my mechanic has one.
and thats a f**ker about being sideswiped! that really sucks.
but its good that you were able to polish out the scrapes pretty well.

Dum de dum, Im picking Ben up from the airport Wednesday night, and we are doing my suspension on Thursday.
You may borrow him after that.

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Tue May 31, 2011 6:19 pm

LOL... Thats if you actually have your suspension in time though :cry:

Should be fun..! Suspension bushes on an mr2... Hmm, how hard could that be..?

I got Phil to do a wheel alignment this afternoon, the rear needed a little tweak and the front left was out a little as well so it was good to get it done even if I didn't put the 2mm of toe out on the front right when doing the shocks! I figure using the curbs a bit at the track and my off circuit excursions might have contributed to the alignment being slightly out.

So now the cars driving perfectly again =) I tried the new tyres and I'm starting the scrub them in. The federals are actually beginning to grip quite well although they lack a bit of feel... Although perhaps I was just spoilt with grip and feedback you get from the Dunlop DZZ1's.

The car ready for an alignment with a cool dino shell in the forground

The reason I've done so much bitching about mud being under the car

Silly looking car is silly with mixed wheels.

Why so much camber wear? Because Race Car

And finally,I've been teaching my sister how to drive... I let her have a go in the MX-5 the other week. She doesn't really like driving, but when driving the MX-5 she (un-promted) decided to tell me how much she likes the steering because it feels that she's actually turning the car.. I was so proud that is seems like she actually might have the car gene after all..! =)

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 8:03 pm

Been a bit inactive with the car until recently. In order to save a few pennies I decided to miss two track days, the Sandown and next Phillip Island meet. Instead of competing I took a video camera down and put together a DVD of the day. The preview of the Sandown video is below, I will make up a similar one for Phillip Island. Was planning on entering a motorkhana today, but recent rain resulted in the event being cancelled.

On friday Alex and I went on an adventure firstly through the Dandenongs, doing a psudo recce of a club run I'm organising in August and then onto Warburton. We then did the Reefton Spur loop through to Marysville and then Healsville. It was an awesome day, after the Spur, about half way to Marysville we say the first snow and then as we kept going there was more and more. Photos are below, and the roof of course stayed down the whole time =)

Photo credits go to -alex

Yesterday I had a problem where for no reason my right rear brake began to stick on after about an hour and a half of driving. By the time I could pull off the highway the disk was glowing red! In the dark on the side of the road I managed to back the pad off the disk, easier said than done as the adjuster was missing from that side so I had to take apart the other side, remove the alan key adjuster and then put it in the other calliper. I had a look today and couldn't really work out why it happened... The brakes have began to drag a bit... Thinking maybe the slider pins need lubrication? Need to get it sorted as the car is going to do a lot of kms in a bit over a week...

MrB · Postby **MrB** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:09 pm

off to sydney again are we - hopefully you'll make it down to do some vids at the island :NA6:

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:19 pm

Yep, heading up north again, should be a nicer drive this time as I imagine there will be less bugs in Winter! I'll be down at the Island on Saturday, looking forward to it as there are a heap of places I think will be awesome to get some video from!

Bizi · Postby **Bizi** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:20 pm

Nice reporting, Ben. I hope you and Alex had some fun on the backroads.
Will you be around for a Max Brenner Wednesday night at St Ives, with the St Ives Fives?

More build pics, please!