Car Forum / Honda Cars / October 2006
Tegger finally does his front bushings
|
|
Thread rating:  |
TeGGeR® - 07 Oct 2006 05:04 GMT Pics here: http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/
I replaced everything except the shocks and springs.
I must say, very emphatically, that this project would have been thoroughly impossible had it not been for my DeWalt electric impact gun. That thing is capable of 325 ft/lbs of torque, and made short work of all the fasteners. Cost $200Cdn and worth every penny.
To my utter shock and amazement, ALL the bolts came loose with no trouble at all. A few required a bit of back-and-forth with the DeWalt, but they all eventually came loose, some in a small cloud of rust dust.
The control arm bushings themselves were another story. My fanciful idea of using my 6" bench vise to push them out was a pipe dream. It went nowhere. It took about 10,000 lbs of pressure from a hydraulic press to budge them. The big ones came out fairly dramatically, popping their way out with lots of hammering effects. There were various items standing on the hydraulic bushing press. The vibration generated by the movement of the old bushings knocked those items off the press. Lots of banging and hammering noises as the bushings inched their way out of the control arms. The garage charged me $30 total. I gave them $40 since they were the only place willing to do the job for me immediately.
Had a couple of heart-stopper moments. 1) Radius rod threads badly rusted. Had to use needle file set to laboriously re-cut threads by hand before new nuts would go on. 2) I collapsed the driver-side balljoint threads through failure to reinstall old nut upside down when popping taper. Needle file set came in handy here too. Managed to rescue balljoint threads. New nut visible in photos was needed because of this problem.
Pass. balljoint popped loose very easily. Driver side wouldn't let go for a long time, but when it did, the whole neighborhood heard the BANG!
Total time about eight hours, including cleanup afterwards.
Was it worth the money? Eh. Who cares. It's the EXPERIENCE that counts.
 Signature TeGGeR®
The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ www.tegger.com/hondafaq/
Grumpy AuContraire - 07 Oct 2006 06:40 GMT > Pics here: > http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/ [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] > -- > TeGGeR® It makes me appreciate the fact that I don't live in the rust belt any longer. That job probably would have only consumed four hours down in these heeyaw pawts...
<G>
JT
TeGGeR® - 07 Oct 2006 18:40 GMT >> Total time about eight hours, including cleanup afterwards. >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > longer. That job probably would have only consumed four hours down in > these heeyaw pawts... At least an hour (probably more) was wasted with rusted radius rod threads, and figuring out how to rescue myself from my boneheaded error of leaving the nut off the balljoint stud when pushing on it.
Tip of the day: ALWAYS put the castle nut back on, UPSIDE DOWN, BEFORE trying to crank down on the stud! "Upside down" refers to reversing the nut so the castellations are pointing up towards the balljoint, instead of down towards the ground. Run the nut on so it's just slightly too far to be truly flush with the end of the stud. This ensures the balljoint tool will not load the threads as it bears on the stud.
That OTC tool worked awesomely, as did the DeWalt impact wrench.
 Signature TeGGeR®
The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ www.tegger.com/hondafaq/
Grumpy AuContraire - 07 Oct 2006 22:18 GMT > >> Total time about eight hours, including cleanup afterwards. > >> [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > to be truly flush with the end of the stud. This ensures the balljoint > tool will not load the threads as it bears on the stud. Yep, I always do that with the axle nut on the tapered units on my Studebakers. My big project is split ball joint/tie rod boots on my '83 Civic. Damned joints are in perfect condition too!
JT
> That OTC tool worked awesomely, as did the DeWalt impact wrench. > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ > www.tegger.com/hondafaq/ speedy - 09 Oct 2006 22:47 GMT > Yep, I always do that with the axle nut on the tapered units on my > Studebakers. My big project is split ball joint/tie rod boots on my '83 > Civic. Damned joints are in perfect condition too! > > JT Hey grumpy,
Look around at the auto parts stores. I have found "generic" one to fit my honda before I found out a good way to knock them apart without touching the boot.
-Pete
Grumpy AuContraire - 10 Oct 2006 00:19 GMT > > Yep, I always do that with the axle nut on the tapered units on my > > Studebakers. My big project is split ball joint/tie rod boots on my '83 [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > -Pete Thanks Pete.
My boots are split simply from age as they are the originals that came with the car in '83. The car sat in the hot TX sun from about '92 through early this year without running. Now, I want to wrap up all the "loose" ends.
JT
Elle - 07 Oct 2006 15:51 GMT > I must say, very emphatically, that this project would > have been [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > but they all eventually came loose, some in a small cloud > of rust dust. That is interesting.
> The control arm bushings themselves were another story. My > fanciful idea [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > press to budge > them. Good datum for the archives. Do you know the actual rating of the press used?
My sense this past spring when I did this job (using long, high grade bolts and nuts etc.) was that the smaller bushings were tighter and so harder to push out.
> Pass. balljoint popped loose very easily. Driver side > wouldn't let go > for a long time, but when it did, the whole neighborhood > heard the BANG! What tool did you use to separate the ball joints?
TeGGeR® - 07 Oct 2006 18:34 GMT "Elle" <honda.lioness@nospam.earthlink.net> wrote in news:T9PVg.6118 $Y24.3968@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net:
>> I must say, very emphatically, that this project would >> have been [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > Good datum for the archives. Do you know the actual rating > of the press used? 20 ton. They mechanic was guessing he was applying probably a quarter of maximum force.
> My sense this past spring when I did this job (using long, > high grade bolts and nuts etc.) was that the smaller > bushings were tighter and so harder to push out. For whatever reason, I had the opposite experience. The small ones pushed out quietly, without drama.
By the way, all my fasteners were OEM.
>> Pass. balljoint popped loose very easily. Driver side >> wouldn't let go >> for a long time, but when it did, the whole neighborhood >> heard the BANG! > > What tool did you use to separate the ball joints? The same OTC tool as shown on my site. Other than needing to grind the jaws wider, it fit and worked extremely well. Very little muscle power was needed to pop the tapers. If Curly's cheapo Princess Auto tool works this well, it's got to be the bargain of the century.
A related story:
When I bulged the threads on the end of the one balljoint, I still needed to pop the taper free. The nut would not fit on upside down on acccount the bulged threads. I had to grind off the castellations so I could put it back the only way it would go (right side up), and continue cranking down the balljoint tool. This is the one that went BANG as it let go.
Well, of course I had to get the nut off again to remove the control arm, but the balljoint stud just spun in place and the nut was stuck fast. Then I remembered you had a similar situation during your project, and somebody suggested to jack the control arm back up again to wedge the taper into its recess again. I did this, and was able to make the stud keep still so the DeWalt could buzz the nut off. After that I used the needle files to clean up the threads.
 Signature TeGGeR®
The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ www.tegger.com/hondafaq/
Elle - 08 Oct 2006 00:08 GMT "TeGGeR®" <tegger@tegger.c0m> wrote E wrote T wrote
>>> It took about 10,000 lbs of pressure from a hydraulic >>> press to budge [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > probably a quarter of > maximum force. This is certainly in the ballpark of my estimates for removing my 91 Civic's control arm bushings.
I think the shop press at the vocational college where I take automotive courses now and then is also 20-ton. The students and instructors use it a lot. Makes me glad I did not buy the12-ton press I was considering. Though I sure wish I'd had access to it (and knew how to use it!) when I was doing my suspension renovation this past spring.
>> My sense this past spring when I did this job (using >> long, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > By the way, all my fasteners were OEM. All my fasteners were and are OEM, too.
Interesting about your 91 Integra's radius rod threads. Those were not any kind of problem for me. But as I have posted in the past, about half the front and rear control arm bolts on my 91 Civic had to be cut off with a die grinder. I am going to add your comments about this DeWalt 325 ft-lb torque electric impact wrench to my "suspension renovation" web site.
The honda-tech.com web site also has reports of guys who broke the fancy trailing arm bushing tool while trying to remove the bushings. It's possible they didn't install it correctly. OTOH, there might be a heckuva lot of variability in what a car experiences by way of rust.
I remember you have that fancy undercoating put on now and then. I wonder if this helped keep the control arms bolts relatively unfouled.
>> What tool did you use to separate the ball joints? > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Auto tool works > this well, it's got to be the bargain of the century. I bought the equivalent to the Princess Auto tool (available only in Canada) from Ebay and was delighted with it.
Good report.
TeGGeR® - 09 Oct 2006 19:36 GMT > OTOH, there might be a heckuva lot of variability > in what a car experiences by way of rust. > > I remember you have that fancy undercoating put on now and > then. I wonder if this helped keep the control arms bolts > relatively unfouled. I'm not sure. See this: <http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/s_old_bolts.jpg> The two very rusty bolts are the inboard bushing bolts. The mounts were fairly greasy with rustproofing, but as you can see, somehow enough water got inside the bushings' sleeves to rust the bolt up.
See the two larger bolts? Those are the damper fork ones. These are fully exposed to road splash and salt, yet they are almost free of rust.
I now have a theory. The inboard bushings' inner sleeves are serrated to make them grip the mount flanges better. These serrations allow water ingress, and thus rusting. The damper fork bushings are smooth, and thus form a more-or-less complete seal against water.
What apparently tends to happen with bushings (my understanding) is that the bolt rusts to the inner sleeve. When you try to loosen the bolt, the inner sleeve tears away from the rubber, then spins in place, so the bolt can't back out of its hole without bending up the mount flanges. I was so concerned about that happening that I rented a Sawzall, which I ended up not needing.
Now, there was one thing I did to defeat any tendency of the inner sleeve refusing to part with the bolt: Before I loosened the bolts, I TIGHTENED them. The reasoning was that if I tried tightening it, the sleeve would be held fast, and thus would be less likely to try to turn. Therefore the impact wrench could more easily tear the rust seal before I loosened it.
More pice: <http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/t_old_parts.jpg> <http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/u_new_parts.jpg> <http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/misc/new_front_bushings/v_radius_rod_bushings.jpg>
 Signature TeGGeR®
The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ www.tegger.com/hondafaq/
Elle - 09 Oct 2006 19:48 GMT > "Elle" <honda.lioness@nospam.earthlink.net> wrote >> OTOH, there might be a heckuva lot of variability [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > are > almost free of rust. For the archives, this pattern of control arm bushing/bolt rust is consistent with what I found on my 91 Civic: The two front inboard bushings seized to the bolts, and I cut these bolts out with a die grinder. But the two front outboard bolts came free just fine.
> I now have a theory. The inboard bushings' inner sleeves > are serrated [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > without > bending up the mount flanges. This is what I saw, too. Some of the bolts I removed in the spring are still virtually welded to the inner sleeve of the bushing.
> I was so concerned about that > happening that I rented a Sawzall, which I ended up not [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > more > easily tear the rust seal before I loosened it. Sounds like a good idea. I in fact used this intermittently when doing the die grinder cuts on the seized bushing sleeves and bolts. I did not cut fully through for all the bolts but rather tightened and loosened the bolts until I saw them (through the notches I had cut with the die grinder) become free from the sleeves.
I saw at least one report in the archives of a guy with an impact wrench (about 600 ft-lb) who had no luck with the control arm bolts. But I will mention the technique you describe and suggest it may be worth renting or buying the impact wrench and giving it a try. Considering all the other uses of an impact wrench, it sounds like a good investment.
TeGGeR® - 09 Oct 2006 21:22 GMT "Elle" <honda.lioness@nospam.earthlink.net> wrote in news:kQwWg.7129 $Y24.2278@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net:
> I saw at least one report in the archives of a guy with an > impact wrench (about 600 ft-lb) who had no luck with the > control arm bolts. I allowed the bolt to tighten perhaps 1/8 turn, then I backed it off to its original position. I went back and forth like this several times, then spun it loose. I figured the rust would be well and truly ground up by that point.
For each of the inboard bolts it took maybe ten seconds of steady pounding in forward and reverse before the bolt began to budge. I cannot imagine what I would have done if I was relying on manual force.
I don't think this degree of control would have been possible without the power of the impact wrench.
> But I will mention the technique you > describe and suggest it may be worth renting or buying the > impact wrench and giving it a try. Considering all the other > uses of an impact wrench, it sounds like a good investment. The major drawback of the electric impact wrench is its bulk. You need a U-joint and lots of room to maneuver it. I could not get enough room to remove the radius rod nuts with it, so those came off (easily, luckily) by hand.
From the end of the square drive at the front to the rear casing, it's almost a foot long, and it weighs about ten pounds.
There's a reason ALL garages rely on impact wrenches the way the human body relies on air and water.
 Signature TeGGeR®
The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ www.tegger.com/hondafaq/
Earle Horton - 09 Oct 2006 21:28 GMT ---snippy---
> There's a reason ALL garages rely on impact wrenches the way > the human body relies on air and water. I don't use one. They're for wimps. ;^)
Earle
 Signature Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
loewent - 10 Oct 2006 04:27 GMT This is what I got from Princess Auto. $11.99.
http://tinyurl.com/j8u42
Hasn't let me down yet. Very minimal effort. Works great on Ball Joints and Tie Rod Ends and doesn't destroy the boot like my old pickle fork did.
Thanks for all the info Tegger!
Terry in Winnipeg.
t
>"Elle" <honda.lioness@nospam.earthlink.net> wrote in news:T9PVg.6118 >$Y24.3968@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net: [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] >stud keep still so the DeWalt could buzz the nut off. After that I used >the needle files to clean up the threads. TeGGeR® - 13 Oct 2006 01:15 GMT > This is what I got from Princess Auto. $11.99. I gotta go in there one day...
 Signature TeGGeR®
The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ www.tegger.com/hondafaq/
loewent - 13 Oct 2006 13:57 GMT Well they are expanding, but I have the advantage cuz the company started up in Winnipeg....
They have really good crazy sales on tools and special tools, surplus etc.... Also they offer lifetime warranty on their 'Powerfist' tools. Not a craftsman, but about 1/3 the price, and still warrantied. If its not a safety issue, I usually buy these ones.
t
>> This is what I got from Princess Auto. $11.99. > >I gotta go in there one day... TeGGeR® - 14 Oct 2006 03:00 GMT > Well they are expanding, but I have the advantage cuz the company > started up in Winnipeg.... My sainted mama grew up in Winnipeg (1930s West Kildonan). But that doesn't help me here. The closest Princess Auto in Ontario is a pack-a-lunch drive from me these days.
Y'know, I've never seen land as FLAT as that surrounding Winnipeg. FLAT FLAT FLAT. Pancake flat. Literally.
You can watch a 200-car freight train go from horizon to horizon, with nothing to block your view. Ever. It doesn't ever dive behind anything, it just gets smaller and smaller unitl it disappears in the distance mirage. Amazing. FLAT, I tell you. FLAT.
> They have really good crazy sales on tools and special tools, surplus > etc.... Also they offer lifetime warranty on their 'Powerfist' "Powerfist"? Could they have not come up with a less melodramatic name? Sounds like something out of a Japanese Manga comic.
 Signature TeGGeR®
The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ www.tegger.com/hondafaq/
Milleron - 14 Oct 2006 15:57 GMT >> Well they are expanding, but I have the advantage cuz the company >> started up in Winnipeg.... [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >Y'know, I've never seen land as FLAT as that surrounding Winnipeg. >FLAT FLAT FLAT. Pancake flat. Literally. Some college students recently measured the variance in the flatness of a pancake and compared it to the terrain of Kansas. Their results, published in the Annals of Improbable Results (a real journal), proved that Kansas is actually FLATTER than an IHOP pancake (but I'm not sure they found the flattest pancake for their study). http://tinyurl.com/y5zauw
>You can watch a 200-car freight train go from horizon to horizon, with >nothing to block your view. Ever. It doesn't ever dive behind anything, [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >"Powerfist"? Could they have not come up with a less melodramatic name? >Sounds like something out of a Japanese Manga comic. Ron
|
|
|