Replacing rear trailing arm bushings without the special tool
03-03-2009, 06:43 PM
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Replacing rear trailing arm bushings without the special tool
I changed out my old rear trailing arm bushings today, and I wanted to share my experience. Here's the TSB. I wanted to do this DIY without purchasing the tool that's made to press out the old bushings and press in the new ones, here. The tool goes for $169? and it is a one time use thing, so to me it wasn't worth it. It also helps that I am unemployed right now and have infinitely more time than money.
Before I go into details about how I pressed out the bushings, I would like to make clear that my method of doing this is self-invented and probably dangerous, so don't assume that it's a safe alternative to using the special tool or having a machine shop do it. Just be careful!
When installing springs last year I noticed that the bolt holding the trailing arm to the lower control arm (the outermost bolt on the LCA) was frozen on each side. I wanted to replace the rear trailing arm bushings without taking the RTA off the car. Luckily, I had a very handy piece of metal laying around in the garage. This is the metal plate off the back of a subwoofer - probably about about a 12" inch one. My brother took apart a bunch of old subwoofers, and this plate is what the magnet sits on, so if you heat it up, you can unglue the magnet and you have a pretty sweet tool to press out the bushings. This thing is pretty thick and it didn't bend or aything.
Here is the DIY that I was following How To: Quick/Easy Civic/Integra Trailing arm bushing replacement
Here is my setup: note a big vice, big C-clamp, monkey wrench (I couldn't find anything more suitable) and aluminum pipe aka breaker bar to turn the vice.
The C-clamp is clamping down on the monkey wrench..I did this because if I clamped down on just the RTA the C-clamp would slip and I was afraid it would break because the bolt was getting off-axis. The vice was actually attached to a table in my garage I had to take it off lol. I would alternate between turning each a few turns unltil the bushing popped out. Pushing out the old bushings was a pain because it was really hard to turn the vice, but pushing the new ones in was easy.
Here are before shots of the old bushings. Notice the cracks. Car has 179XXX miles.... I have no idea if they were ever replaced before but I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't. Car is a 97 Civic EX coupe btw.
I'll admit this probably took me around 2 hours per side to do, but I was in no rush, and it was 20 degrees and windy outside. Total spent = $69.16 for the 2 bushings shipped to my door from Majestic Honda (HondaAutomotiveParts.com)
I drove the car around the block just to make sure everything was right. I can't say that there was a noticeable difference in the ride or anything; I'll have to run over some bumps or something. I'll be driving the car tomorrow anyway. If I have any issues with my suspension because of this I'll post here. Thanks for reading.
Before I go into details about how I pressed out the bushings, I would like to make clear that my method of doing this is self-invented and probably dangerous, so don't assume that it's a safe alternative to using the special tool or having a machine shop do it. Just be careful!
When installing springs last year I noticed that the bolt holding the trailing arm to the lower control arm (the outermost bolt on the LCA) was frozen on each side. I wanted to replace the rear trailing arm bushings without taking the RTA off the car. Luckily, I had a very handy piece of metal laying around in the garage. This is the metal plate off the back of a subwoofer - probably about about a 12" inch one. My brother took apart a bunch of old subwoofers, and this plate is what the magnet sits on, so if you heat it up, you can unglue the magnet and you have a pretty sweet tool to press out the bushings. This thing is pretty thick and it didn't bend or aything.
Here is the DIY that I was following How To: Quick/Easy Civic/Integra Trailing arm bushing replacement
Here is my setup: note a big vice, big C-clamp, monkey wrench (I couldn't find anything more suitable) and aluminum pipe aka breaker bar to turn the vice.
The C-clamp is clamping down on the monkey wrench..I did this because if I clamped down on just the RTA the C-clamp would slip and I was afraid it would break because the bolt was getting off-axis. The vice was actually attached to a table in my garage I had to take it off lol. I would alternate between turning each a few turns unltil the bushing popped out. Pushing out the old bushings was a pain because it was really hard to turn the vice, but pushing the new ones in was easy.
Here are before shots of the old bushings. Notice the cracks. Car has 179XXX miles.... I have no idea if they were ever replaced before but I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't. Car is a 97 Civic EX coupe btw.
I'll admit this probably took me around 2 hours per side to do, but I was in no rush, and it was 20 degrees and windy outside. Total spent = $69.16 for the 2 bushings shipped to my door from Majestic Honda (HondaAutomotiveParts.com)
I drove the car around the block just to make sure everything was right. I can't say that there was a noticeable difference in the ride or anything; I'll have to run over some bumps or something. I'll be driving the car tomorrow anyway. If I have any issues with my suspension because of this I'll post here. Thanks for reading.
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