Ok, so after my struggle with replacing all the rear suspension bushing on my LX with AHC I thought I'd make a quick post.
First of all, don't do it. Unless you have a good press, don't try to do the bushings.
But... Like the true LX owner I soldered on thinking, sure, this is fine...
Bought a bushing press die kit off eBay, that came with a bunch of acme thread rods.
First pass, nothing, and I started with the pan hard bushing since they are the smallest. Yikes, ok let's try some heat. So with a LOT of heat I got the "press" moving with a big breaker bar.
Ok so the pan hard bar come out pretty easy, and the bushings came out without a huge fuss, let's do a lower control arm.
Read up here, some say raise same side, some say opposite side... Mine was definitely opposite side. And had to raise quite a bit. Lots of back and forth, raise, check, raise, check, raise, check, too far, lower, check, lower...
Get that sorted and put mad sweat, blood, and tears into the bushings, basically two nights of labor after work. Almost done, only uppers now...
Man, for the life of me I couldn't find the right combination of angles to get the uppers to pop free. And there was not anything solid about other results, even FSM is a little vague. What finally freed them up was full suspension droop under both rear wheels. And this is with AHC set to high.
In recap, there are plenty of great replacement upper and lower rear control arms out there. BUY THEM. And if anyone wants some stock control arms with new poly bushings, I'll make you a great deal.
First of all, don't do it. Unless you have a good press, don't try to do the bushings.
But... Like the true LX owner I soldered on thinking, sure, this is fine...
Bought a bushing press die kit off eBay, that came with a bunch of acme thread rods.
First pass, nothing, and I started with the pan hard bushing since they are the smallest. Yikes, ok let's try some heat. So with a LOT of heat I got the "press" moving with a big breaker bar.
Ok so the pan hard bar come out pretty easy, and the bushings came out without a huge fuss, let's do a lower control arm.
Read up here, some say raise same side, some say opposite side... Mine was definitely opposite side. And had to raise quite a bit. Lots of back and forth, raise, check, raise, check, raise, check, too far, lower, check, lower...
Get that sorted and put mad sweat, blood, and tears into the bushings, basically two nights of labor after work. Almost done, only uppers now...
Man, for the life of me I couldn't find the right combination of angles to get the uppers to pop free. And there was not anything solid about other results, even FSM is a little vague. What finally freed them up was full suspension droop under both rear wheels. And this is with AHC set to high.
In recap, there are plenty of great replacement upper and lower rear control arms out there. BUY THEM. And if anyone wants some stock control arms with new poly bushings, I'll make you a great deal.
