uicnick

Hey all,

I've got my suspension torn down, replacing shocks/springs etc, and figured i'd do LCA bushings since my car has 75k miles on it. Surprisingly, the bushings look OK on the control arms and ball joints, links, etc. all look great. Even the front Boge shocks weren't totally shot. I feel at least that I'm doing ROW suspension upgrade and they're probably at the high end of their life. Anyway, I took the arms to a local machine shop here and they refused to press them out because there is a chance of cracking the aluminum. Anyone have any opinions/experience on this? I didn't really think about this but now it makes better sense to me to follow the DIY and burn/cut the old bushings out. I'll still save some money I suppose with the investemnt of torch, punches, etc. Has anyone here pressed out there bushings? If so, any issues or failures? i'd be scared if the component were to catastrophically fail while running down the track. I believe that is why you can't get replacement bushings from Porsche, they figure if the bushings are worn, the stress in the arm requires replacement.

_nick

chris walrod

If your press tools both female and male are sized correctly and other parts of the control arm doesnt bind on anything else, pressing these out is pretty straight forward. I press out (the forward bushing) bushings about once a week and have no issues.

targagr

Chris do you have a pic of the "correct tools" needed to press bushings out. Im about to tackle and install your bushings, id rather press them out than do the whole DIY..

chris walrod

Here you go.

First one on the left is for tapping out the aft bushings (after one is muscled out via chisel), the middle tool is the steel male press tool (aluminum not up for the task) and the one on the right is the female tool used to place the control arm onto and used to react pressing forces.

Quadcammer

i actually just did this.

With the correct tools its really not bad though that big bushing is a bear.

Chris, i mildly gouged the surface of one of the small bushing holes face(where you put the chisel to hammer them out). I intended to smooth this out a bit but obviously not take much material off.

Will this be ok in your estimation?

Thanks for all your help

chris walrod

Yeah, should be fine.

Quadcammer

ok, cool thanks a lot Chris. Appreciate not only the product but your offer to do the exchange.

uicnick

thanks for the feedback and pics guys

targagr

Thanks for the pics Chris!