Glad you noticed it before your wheel shot off the car. Dont have ES yet but will be extra catious about it now.

 

Thanks for the heads-up!

 

OH FACK!

I was putting everything together in a hurry when I did mine, so the rear bushing never occurred to me..... Now I guess I have to take it apart again and put a second washer in there! *curse* *curse* *curse* Maybe I'll just install that LTB I bought from you and move those washers to the rear....

My kit didn't come with any washers at all.

 

as per my sig on another site....

Bman, sounds like you've got a plan. pulling the control arm isn't horribly hard on ours now.. just hope that center sleeve pulls off easy!

 

Great, thanks Matt. I was going to install that thing after the rebuild anyway, so I could see if I could tell any difference with it... I just never thought it'd be like this.

It had better come off easy! After the ordeal I had to go through to get the arms off in the first place I cleaned everything up and put anti-sieze all over the gusset pivot. I expect everything to come apart easily this time around.

I'm going to park the car for now and do it this weekend - I'm sick of freezing AND working by lamp light in the dark....

 

Yes, the ES bushing will eventually walk out backwards if not kept in place with the rear washer. Oh, and when I called ES on my problem they promptly sent their 4 washers out via 2-day mail to take care of me.

Oh, and be careful of the 3 bolts on the control arm bushing pin. I found pretty good thread sheer on some bolts making it tough to remove and reinstall. Maybe from my driving punishment but maybe normal wear.

 

It seems that a lof ot people have issues with those bolts. A lot of the B14 and B15 guys are stripping those out when they pull the gussets off, and I've seen it happen on the 3rd gens as well. I'm thinking it's a bit of an issue with overtorquing from the factory.
Nonetheless, I just run a tap through them and clean up the threads, then treat everything liberally with anti-sieze. haven't had one sieze or strip out yet.

 

Well I didn't pull the whole thing off that way (and maybe it's a good thing I didn't...), but I did need to clean up the threads on the two rear bushing bolt holes. Both had warped and one was trying to start itself crossthreaded! Strangely the other side was fine....

 

You do your specs, I will do mine. I replaced the entire bushing set on my old SER, set to factory spec afterwards.... No issues. and I do mean every bushing......

 

Here's the spanking new, nylock nut:

 

Well, I got it all put back together this weekend. I had to remove the plate that holds the rear control arm pivot so I could work it all back into place without seperating the ball joint. I made sure the threads on both sides were clean and put some Permatex blue thread lock on before torquing them down.

Got the alignment done and everything went right back into spec, so nothing was permanently damaged in all of this.

 

Had something scary happen on a friend's B13 which we installed ES control arm bushings on. We didn't have a press at the time to get the old bushings out so in order to get them out we drilled out the rubber and then used a hacksaw to remove the outer sleeve of the bushing that is pressed into the control arm. We ended up cutting into the control arm cylindrical part where the bushing goes in, but it didn't look too deep so we didn't think anything of it. Something like a year later my friend was driving on the highway and this control arm just plain ripped free of the car. Luckily he somehow had decent control of the car and could pull over and didn't spin out or anything. He replaced the control arm with a junkyard part and all was fine.

I plan on getting these bushings soon so I'll take extra care to understand how things come apart and then put them back together the same way (washers, etc.)

 

Anybody know the thread size on that? I buggered up the thread on the piece that goes through the bushing and I need to buy a tap to fix 'er up.

 

I don't know the diameter, but I'm willing to bet it's a regular 1.5 coarse metric thread. The rest of the bolts on the car are.

 

Here is the deal. I buggered up the thread on the end of it(Actually VQuick buggered it up. LOL Tom). But only the first 1.5 threads is messed. I tried all the standard taps we have at school. I put them in the nut and found one that fit perfectly(5/8" in whatever thread it was). I'm wondering if it fit so well or seemed to fit so well because of the nylock part. What do you think? I really only need to be able to get the first two threads cleaned up. I want to use the die we have but not if its going to force the nut to misthread. There is no point in buying a single die. Normally I'm of the opinion that buying the tools required is a good investment but this time I don't feel that way. I would much rather buy the whole set but I honestly don't forsee many situations in which I need dies.

 

it's a 16 or 18 x 1.5mm thread, IIRC..
just buy the damn tap. they're like $5 or 10. do it right and stop trying to "redneck engineer" solutions for it. the $10 is well worth it when you screw it up with the wrong die and end up having to buy a new gusset from the dealer for $100+ or even a junkyard part at $25.

 

That six inch piece of steel is $100? D@mn. If I can't find a die to borrow I will buy a whole set. That is just the way I am. I would feel incomplete if I bought only one. It would be floating around in the tool chest all lonely.

 

I doubt you'll be able to find a tap and die that big in any kind of set that isn't extremely expensive.

When I had to go and buy a tap and die for some of the large, rear bolts I had to get it separately and I took the bolt along with me to verify... you can take the nut to check. Either that or buy a thread pitch gauge for a few bucks.



In case anyone's wondering I moved the front CA washers to the rear, and installed Matt's LTB to replace them in the front. The rear half bushing had worked out of one CA, but wasn't damaged or scuffed up very much so I regreased it and tried to reinstall it. Because I was trying to push only one bushing in, the trapped air in between tried to push it back out. Very annoying. I ended up pushing down on it (with a board) and prying at it really hard with a small screwdriver in an attempt to let the air escape. This let me get it in most of the way and I just used the CA nut to press it in the rest of the way (like <1/4") as I put everything back together. I'm confident eventually the air will naturally work its way out with use so this won't create a problem.

 

****, sorry we messed up the thread, Broan! Even though I was wielding the hammer I think it was an oversight on both of our parts....just like when we dented part of my unibody with the jack!

 

Bman, why not just drill a pin-hole through the bushing to allow the air to escape easily? I think that is what I'll do.

I agree. I was stupid not to think to have the nut on the end protecting it. BTW, that part we dented with the jack is the area that would be filled with that foam.

 

Well the bushing isn't that thick, so that would be a picky drilling job and I don't think I have a drill bit as small as I'd like anyway.... it'd weaken the bushing in that spot besides. My last resort would have been to slot the bushing a little, which is something done with other bushings (like sway bar D-bushings). I figured if I could just get the thing on far enough to allow installation, I could let the washers hold the bushing in until it stabilizes itself with some driving.

 

subscribed

 

matt93SE if you wanna buy something off your site how do you go about it?

 

woah.. amazing I saw this thread...

My contact info is linked at the bottom of each page on my website: http://www.mattblehm.com/contact.html

 

I just sold my poly bushings. Realized after installing ball joints, the car was riding smoother than ever. I am sure they help out in handling, but too much a pita to install.