Lower "A" arm bushing removal.

[Dan Thompson]

Ben, you wrote:
> I'm going to install new lower "A" arms on my classic.

Here's a trick from an old-school member, "Bill the arcstarter":

Guys -
Thought I'd share with you a fairly cool method of removing those pesky
steel bushing shells out of the front control arms.  Folks installing new
poly bushings will need to remove these shells as part of the installation
process.

Note that most sane people just take the arms to a shop, and pay to have the
sleeves pressed out.  Well - that (paying) just isn't my style, and I didn't
want to buy a press (cause I'm cheap), so here's what I've done.  This has
worked great on seven seperate control arms, so I'd say its a well debugged
process by now:

1) Get a 1/2 inch diam carriage bolt, a nut, and some (4) washers from the
h/w store.  As luck would have it - the washers are just the right size to
engage the inner steel sleeve w/o touching the outer.  Actual measurements
are:
Washer o.d. = 1.380 inch
Bushing steel sleeve o.d. = 1.417 inch
Bushing steel sleeve i.d. = 1.265 inch

The washers I used were "1/2 inch washers", but I also noticed that
different outer diameters are available depending on which bin you grab them
from etc.  You'll need a washer pile about 1/4 inch thick or so as you will
eventually be hammering on the sleeve via the edge of these washers.

The important thing is that the washer diam falls between the outer and
inner diams of the sleeve being driven, etc.

2) Make a 'drift' out of the rod, nut, and washers.  Run the nut up the
shaft, put on the 4 washers, and run another nut up to keep the washers on
the bolt.  The goal is for the washers to press onto the edge of the steel
inner (bushing's) sleeve.  I lifted this trick from a Mopar Muscle magazine
- used it last year for doing some truck transmission work. :)

3) Mount control arm in a sturdy bench vise.  Burn out/debond the rubber as
usual.  Use a propane torch or a salamander heater or anything along these
lines.

4) Heat the outer shell (this is part of the control arm) along a line
lengthwise redhot.  This expands the outer sheel away from the inner. (Need
O/A torch or equiv - perhaps MAPP would do it?)

5) Line up the washer stack with the bushing shell, and hammer the bolt assy
to drive out the inner sleeve.  A 2lb hammer was plenty.  4-5 whacks and it
was out.

The only risk is that the heat will change the temper of the outer cylinder.
 I bet it doesn't matter.  The steel seems soft beforehand so I don't think
it comes w/ any special heat treatment from the factory.

Afterwards I wire-brushed the control arm to blow off all the dead paint,
and sprayed it with a bit of primer.

When I first tried this - I was hoping the washer drift would allow removal
w/o the heating step, but that was not the case.

I also noticed that the rearmost rubber mount on a stock control arm can be
removed (by unscrewing it using a large pipe wrench) w/o using heat, etc.

(Dan here...)
As a side note, I was able to use a regular propane torch to do this.
It took longer, but still came out quite nicely in the end.

Good luck.