Bushes- Easy to do yourself?

[wazman]

Hey all,

With the new year comes more track days etc and i want to change all the bushes in my lower control arms.

Has anyone done this themselves ? Is is hard and what "special" tools do you need to do it ?

or if you had them installed in melb how much did it cost?

Also for drift events i was thinking of putting in a whiteline sway bar in the rear only....... Anyone had experience with this sort of setup ?

[rascal]

IMO, doing bushes is a major pita, so I think the $40 or so is costs to get a susp place to fit them is money well spent..

Better still, negotiate free fitting when purchasing the bushes in the first place... (which is what I did..)

[StanTheMan]

agreed if they only charge you $40.....its a no brainer.

it would cost you that much to get the right tooling anyway. and you are only doing the lower arms.

if you were to do the whole lot.....thats a different ball game then.

[16bit]

any idea what a full job should cost?

[Locutus]

$40?! maybe if you had the lower arms out had just had them press the bushes in/out for you.

wholesale suspensions (forum sponsor) charge $500 labour for install of all suspension bushes under constant load, which includes acid washing and repainting of control arms. takes a full day.

[Caffeine]

$40?! maybe if you had the lower arms out had just had them press the bushes in/out for you.

wholesale suspensions (forum sponsor) charge $500 labour for install of all suspension bushes under constant load, which includes acid washing and repainting of control arms. takes a full day.

That's a good deal, I paid $350 for the fronts only, no cleaning or anything

[Hellmun]

Well it's not easy but quite manageable. You can make a tool with some threaded bar, a correctly sized washer, 2 nuts and some flat plate with a hole. You'll need the alignment redone after. It's harder with offset bushes though. They need to be orientated correctly for the alignment. Took about 5-6 hours from memory.

I'd expect $3-500 to do a whole set from a suspension shop.

[rascal]

$40?! maybe if you had the lower arms out had just had them press the bushes in/out for you.

Yeah, sorry I was talking about removing the arms yourself first and just taking them in to fit the bushes..

I took four arms in to get the bushes pressed out/in and was charged $40 last time, and this time I negotiated free fitting (again with me removing the top & bottom arms first) when I bought the bushes..

[wazman]

That sounds like a good deal..... I was planning on taking the arms out my self and getting "the old in out in out"

Where is this "$40" bush pushing place ?

I was only going to do the bottom ones as my budget is tight ish...... Is this a horrible plan?

What of the sway bars? Who has experimented and ended up with an over steer happy setup ?......and what was it ?

[rascal]

Wazman, you have PM..

Doing the lowers only will still be better than it was previous, though obviously not quite as good as doing all bushes..
IMHO, still worth doing..

Can't help with rear only sway bar as I've got adj F&R, cos I want it as neutral as possible for max cornering speed..

[WASP]

Have a go you whimp

[Juffa]

I have replaced the suspension bushes on all three of my MX-5s. Always used Super Pro bushes. Took me about 10 hours the last time. I use a big bench vice to force out the old and push in the new.

While looking at the Super Pro website for some info for another post I found some videos on install tips. The video links are near the bottom of the following page.

http://www.fulcrumsuspensions.com.au/superpro.html

J

[wun911]

There was a gb on these a while back but not enough pplz

[jerrah]

Pretty sure those who want it to rotate quickly stick a big beefy bar on the front.

Autocrossers in the states take off the rear bar altogether and run a large front bar.

If it's costing $500 labor what do the bushing cost by themselves?

[rascal]

If it's costing $500 labor what do the bushing cost by themselves?

A full set of bushes are around the $500 mark..