Well tommorow will be a day of wrenching in the garage. I plan on disasembeling the entire suspension, for the prothane bushings to go in. I will also be replacing the lower ball joints as they have gone through hell and look accordingly, the Haynes manual says specialty tools are required to r&r them, but it doesn't mention wheel bearings, or a slide hammer for the rotors/hub removal.
well I have a couple of questions, what is the best way to attach the slide hammer to the hub? I know a couple of people have changed out their rotors recently, if you could give a walk through of the removal it would be great.

 

Look, installing the bushings is not worth it if you dont have a hydraulic press to press out the bushings in the control arm. That is one I would leave to the pros.

 

I will be taking the suspension and steering knuckle to a shop

 

update, passenger side axle nut appeares frozen in place. Jumping on a two ft breaker bar was not effective will now be using an impact wrench to break that shizzle off

 

Jumping on it won't work... been there, tried that... what will work however is a 5ft cast iron pipe on top of a 2 ft breaker bar after soaking in liquid wrench overnight... i think the torque specs were something like 300+ft-lbs and add to that the 12 years of seizing, good luck and be careful.

 

update: he got it off but he wasnt very far along at 10:45 pm last night. i left when he was taking off the driver side caliper..

 

how hard is it to yank everything off to install the prothane bushings? Special tools needed? I have my prothane total kit sitting in my room. Not sure whether to pay someone to do it all, or somehow figure out how to take it apart myself and take the pieces to a shop w/ a press.

 

everything so far has been pretty easy, with the exception of the tie rod ends. the bolts are made of soft metal and the thread was crushed causing the castle nut to become stuck . well off to try to remove the whole tie rod end while it is attached to the knuckle

 

Updates Karl? What bushings have you R&Red so far?

IIRC torque spec for the axle nut is 181 ft-lbs, but it usually take like 500+ ft-lbs to break them loose. I've broken loose 7 axle nuts in the past 6 months (2' breaker bar and 2' pipe) I'm amazed the breaker bar hasn't broken.

 

the knuckle, hub, lca, uca, and uca bushing holder thingies are all at a shop being cleanedup with a bead blaster Im only doing the front suspension now the rear will come after the next event. Unexpected costs, both sides getting new axels, both sides getting new tie rod ends( just had these fuggin things replaced ). No complaints though, as the pressing and bead blasting are all being done for free.

 

Aww man, none of those bushings can be done without heavy-duty equipment?

 

only the radius rods
the shock/strut rod bushings and spring pearch bushing can also be replaced without a press


[Modified by smokin rubber, 8:51 PM 4/12/2002]