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| With the OE sleeves off we can now position our solid bushings. Our impact gun method handled the job well. |
Installing all of these bushings, unfortunately, is a major pain in the ass. There are multiple ways you can remove the stock bushings, but we landed on utilizing the path of least resistance: fire. Armed with our trusty blow torch, we burned the stock rubber out, and cut the bushing sleeve with a hacksaw, being very careful to keep from scoring the surface on the inside of the suspension part. To use the hacksaw, simply take it apart, put the blade inside the sleeve, reassemble the hacksaw and start cutting. Using a torch to burn the bushing out can be extremely dangerous and may result in component failure if you heat the metal too much. Needless to say, we take no responsibility for your house, car, and sister’s hair catching fire, as well as overly brittle suspension components resulting from your actions before, during and after burning your bushings out. If you’re at all uncomfortable with this process, take it to a professional and let them break their press getting these bushings out.
To install the new urethane bushings in the control arms and links, simply push them in with a vice, make sure to use plenty of Energy Suspension urethane grease. Clean off any excess grease, as this will attract unwanted dirt. For the Custom Steel subframe bushings, you will need a little more persuasion. First, you must remove the engine, transmission, steering rack and subframe. After using the fire and hacksaw method to remove the stock bushings, we were ready to install the new Custom Steel bushings. We used a bolt with the same outside diameter as the inside diameter of the new bushings, approximately 14mm, threaded a nut on the other side with a washer between the bushing and the fasteners and tightened it down with an impact wrench. This forced the bushing into the subframe with minimal grunting on our part, though it did take quite some time to get them completely seated. Using a press would be extremely difficult because of the awkward size and shape of the subframe, so we felt that this was the easiest method.
