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Poly bushings.

Tamnakz

Tamnakz

Active member
Joined
May 28, 2006
Location
Lansing, Michigan
Looking into getting a full set of poly to install on my '76. I'm going to have most of the parts off already, how hard should the install be? Mostly just labor intensive? I've nver replaced ANY bushings before.
 
a bearing press sure makes things a lot easier. Or get creative with some threaded rod, some washers, nuts, some drilled through pieces of steel stock, and a hammer.
 
The bushes that fit into mounts that're welded to the diff are a pain; from memory, most of the others should be possible using a bench vice of reasonable size.
Can this car afford to be off the road while you locate a suspension joint, should you find there's something you can't do? I presume so if it's going to be all in bits?
 
cst805 said:
my above statement was altered for accuracy.

but yah, a torch and a hammer can do the job.
Click to expand...

I can smell your ninja edits from a mile away. :-P

Lawdy though a press would have made it easier. Next time around, I'll just pick up some threaded rod, a few nuts, and various sizes of washers, as well ass some pipes for bearing cups. The fronts are all cake, but, as mentioned, the rear trailing arm mount is a nightmare, especially since the damn E-brake cables are right there. Next time I'll remove those.
 
homer1300 said:
How hard is it to replace the panhard rod bushings?
Click to expand...

I "cheated" and bought an IPD adjustable bar with the bushings already installed :)

just be careful burning the old rubber bushing out...smelly, sooty and cannot be good to breath that cr@p at all....I found that instead of trying to actually burn the rubber itself, it worked best if I heated up the housing/shell outside to break down the bond between the rubber and the shell.
 
I figured I'd be doing alot or burning and beating.

The car is going to be completely pulled a part and painted/new undercoat, I'm going to do all the bushing at the same time, so it all goes back together purty. It'll also get IPD sways, a VolvoDan chassis bar, and alot of other goodies! :cool:
 
You don't burn, you melt. Burning insinuates you have a flame and are creating all sorts of toxic fumes. Melting insinuates you use heat. You use heat to melt the rubber just enough so the bushing pops out. Then you clean up the remaining residue with a wire brush. A small brush on a die grinder works great...

And yes, the heat does come from a flame. Preferably one from a propane torch. I did an entire set of bushings in my enclosed garage. Wasn't overcome with smoke or toxic fumes once...
 
Use a hole saw about the same size as the inner diameter of the bushing to be removed and cut out the rubber with a drill. Clean remaining rubber with a wire brush. No flame.
 
Tamnakz said:
Aww,but I've got acetyline!
Burning is more fun. . .

That's spelled wrong. . .
Click to expand...

if you can avoid burning them, I'd go that route....besides the fumes being noxious, the soot it creates is a PITA to clean up...I got carried away and let a few bushings catch on fire on my driveway for a few minutes (sitting on an aluminum sheet)

after I hosed them off to cool down I swept the driveway pretty good or so I thought...my wife and I couldn't figure out why our tile floors downstairs kept getting dirty so often...I narrowed it down to soot still being on the driveway...once I powerwashed the driveway, no more dirty tile floors
 
245gti said:
You don't burn, you melt. Burning insinuates you have a flame and are creating all sorts of toxic fumes. Melting insinuates you use heat. You use heat to melt the rubber just enough so the bushing pops out. Then you clean up the remaining residue with a wire brush. A small brush on a die grinder works great...

And yes, the heat does come from a flame. Preferably one from a propane torch. I did an entire set of bushings in my enclosed garage. Wasn't overcome with smoke or toxic fumes once...
Click to expand...

That worked great for me on the two 245s I did in a day.. Seem to have things catch fire a little bit and have trouble getting the heat to distribute as nicely with a smallish propane torch over the larger axle/lower trailing arm PITA bushings. Other than that, that is definitely the preferred method.

For a car that you don't want to take off the road, I'd spend like 50 bones and some time at the JY and grab a 240's worth of suspension (shouldn't take long with the car on blocks if it isn't too rusty) and make friends with someone with a press were I to do it over. You can also clean everything off nicely so all you have to do is bolt up clean suspension with new bushings. Of course, taking the axle out of a car isn't practical, so for the lower TAs/axle bushings you probably get to burn (more like a melty/near burning experience for me) them out in place, which always sucks in my experience.
 
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