I removed the bushings after I pulled out the entire upper control arm assembly. (see my first post on this)

One other thing that will help keep those new bushings live a lot longer: Before you pull the upper control arm assembly out, or even loosen the nuts on each end of the pivot shaft, make a note of the approximate positon of the control arm so that you can tighten it to the same position when you put everything back together. Or you can do the final tightening of the nuts after you bring the car back down to the ground. The idea is to minimize stress on the bushings while the car is sitting at normal ride height. (An alternative is to make you rown bushings out of Delrin and aluminum; they will never wear out, but they will feel harsh.)

 

Well, I bought the harbor freight press...but have yet to get to work on it- weather got cold and rainy, keeping me from getting out there - no garage to speak of...

While finances are tight, it was easier to spend $20 on a toll, and keep it, than fork over the $90 AutoBone wanted to rent their's - even if I got it back...

 

Let me know how the tool works. Like I said, I bought JC Whitney's for about $70 and sent it back after I couldn't install bushings with the brackets still on the van. The brackets were VERY tight, must have a heavy torque.

xlt4wd, does the alignment need to be done after removal of the brackets? Or did you scribe lines and get as close as possible to original position.

I had put jack stands under the lower a-arms to pre-load prior to tightening the nuts.

 

I don't know how you got those bushings out without removing the bracket. It took me a solid 45 mins per to get them out and that was with the bracket in a vise......and the torque on these babies is 135 to 145 Ft lbs for the front bolts and 145 to 155 for the center and rear.

 

cookkd,

I used a "cat's claw" and a 5 pound sledge (forgot to mention this in my first post) to collapse the outer bushing shell. I put the tip of the short bent end of the cat's claw against the side of the outer shell and pounded on it until the shell started to collapse. Do this a couple times at different places around the shell, and them the bushing just pulls right out. You can do this with a cold chissel as well, but the long handle od the cat's claw keep you hand far enough away from the path of the hammer that you have enough confidence to really whack at it. You might try holding the chissel with a pair of long-handled pliers. (Even a light whack with a 5 pound sledge on your thumb hurts like hell.)

lv2race,

All the instructions I read said to make some kind of mark on the steel plate between the frame rail and the brackets so you can put them back in the same place afterwards. The problem is that when you press in the new bushings, you don't always press them into the same depth as the originals. This will change the fore-aft location of at least one of the brackets; usually the rear one, since I start the assembly by tightening down the front first and I can put it back to where it was (the rust marks on the plate is a good marker).

If you had your front end aligned with worn bushings, chances are that they've installed additional shims to push the control arm out. When you take your car to get the front end aligned again with the new bushings, there is a good chance that they will have to remove some of the shims. So I just try to get them close to the original positions. I did remove some of the shims on the right side of my van (there were a lot more there than on the left side for some reason) and moved the brackets out a little bit to compensate. The trick here was to not move them too far out, as there are only one thick shim left on each end of the arm to remove to pull the arm inboard. They can always add more shims to push the arm outboard.

Related to this, my right front tire is pretty badly worn on the edges. This shows that the right bushing really needed to be replaced. This is also exacerbated by the fact that I (most drivers) take left turns faster than right turns. I was tempted to try some modifications to try to improve the geometry of the suspension. The stock design has very poor dynamic camber characteristics; it does not enhance traction around turns, and it chews up the tires. I figured that if I installed the upper ball joint below the control arm instead of above it, it would help the geometry a little. But I'm worried that the ball joint doesn't have enough travel to accommodate this angle change. I'll have to check.

 

My experience replacing the left upper A-arm bushings on 96 AWD:
1. Tied the upper part of the steering knuckle to the top of the shock shaft. Dunno how much the axle can tolerate in 'n' out and thought it might flop out totally if the knuckle wasn't restrained.
2. All four bolts holding the brackets to the frame showed some corrosion and loss of material (I'm in CA--no salt except the occasional foray into the mountains perhaps-- but it has been taken out on the B'ville Salt Flats--although washed pretty thoroughly afterwards). The smaller forward bolt (10mm/1.5mm x 30mm long Grade 10.9 hex head with captured locking/serrated washer 30mm in diameter) was half eaten through, so I replaced it, and drilled out the washer slightly to go over the new bolt. Ran a tap through the captured nut in the frame before reassembly--it needed it.
3. The three large (and they ARE large) bolts (16mm/2.0mm x 194 mm long Grade 10.9 with flanged hex head; maximum non-threaded (grip) length is about 165mm) weren't missing enough material to reduce their clamping strength, so I re-used them. They are available in a package of 3 from Ford for $40 I'm told. The nuts are 24 mm (although a 15/16 might work)
4. The front bolt on the rear bracket has to be removed last and installed first. I gently deflected the left front brake tube (loop near the hose attachment) both up against the fender well and slightly down on the bottom for better wrench clearance and to remove the rearmost big attachment bolt. You will have to tighten the bushing nuts after the big attachment bolts are installed; otherwise you can't readily move the A-arm around relative to the brackets to get the big attachment bolts in place.
5. I could find no published figure for the torque on the bushing nuts, so I used a comparable non-metric size (1/2" NC) Grade 5 figure of 75 ft-# on these. While these nuts are 21mm, I believe, a 13/16" wrench will just fit. The torque issue is a bit moot, since you won't have space to get a torque wrench in there anyway. Maybe torque them out of the car, then mark the nut position, loosen, and tighten to the mark when they're in the car.
6. This was my first time doing this, and it took me a total of about 6-7 hours.
7. I partially cut and ground off the flanges on the old bushing shells so I could fit a piece of 2" pipe against the A-arm bracket/casting. Then I whacked the other side of the bushing shell with a big hammer to get it started, and finished by using a piece of 1" or 1-1/4" pipe to drive out the shell. For installing the new bushings, I used a 6-inch bench vise, pushing on the outer washer over the rubber bushing on one side, and using an appropriate diameter (1-1/2" maybe) pipe on the other in conjunction with an appropriate (3/16" steel shim I think) on one side of the bracket casting to allow for the angle difference and make for a straight push of the bushing into the bracket. Oh, yeah, the inner bushing cylinder (with the serrated ends) is a slip fit (after breaking the corrosion lock) on the cross-shaft.

 

Awesome Max! Necessity is the mother of innovation.

Not that I expect to go back into the arms anytime soon, I still coated a lot of the metal-to-metal surfaces with grease to help prefent rusting. It just might make it easier on me the next time I have to do this again.