Rear Trailing arm night mare, man on the edge
 

Hi guys, now I have calmed down and taken some time to think a bit more clearly, I have come here to ask for advice and to let off a bit of steam.

So took delivery of some heavy duty springs and both the front and rear bushings for the rear trailing arms.

Started of great, all came apart better than I expected, I got the old bushings out no problem, drill, recip saw, blow torch cold chisel Tried and tested. My issue is getting the new all fitted. Blumming heck it has nearly broken me nothing I have tried is working, The threaded bar i bought to make a tool to press the bushings in might as well be made of chocolate. I have broken two heavy duty vices. Reall had a bad.

I have bought some fine threaded high tensile replacement threaded rod and some heavy gauge big sized washers to have another bash at it. I can’t be beat, the trailing arms are I have are fine, so buying new with bush already in or buying a home press are expensive last resorts.

I white wheeled all old crap of surfaces, can anyone at all give any other further advice or tips on how to do this, or suppliers of actual proper threaded rod with actual metal still in ???

Please help

If you do a search on the forum you will find various ways of doing this:~ the threaded bar method used with reducers (pipe/washers etc) works, however the bar doesn't last long as you are finding ie standard bar will do it but will need changing to secure descent threaded areas.

One piece of advice that I found useful is to use the threaded bar supplied for compressing springs- H.T.Steel being more than up to the task.

The bush has a slight tapper so should initially move into the eyes fairly easily and progressively become tighter- the eyes need to be supported with spacers to prevent distortion and obviously be clear of rust etc.
Lubricate with Waxoyl or similar.
The above should have an indication arrow to show the orientation of the bush-you will find these details within the forum etc.
They can be difficult but not beyond D.I.Y etc.
Good Luck
Bob.

The two attached photos may help- my diy tool in use.

A length of m12 threaded rod with connector nuts (the long ones, so they’re engaged on a lot more threads at once than a standard nut)
A number of washers
A piece of tube bigger than the bush for the receiving side, so that the end of the bush can be pushed into place properly (on the right in the photo)
A piece of tube cut in half lengthways and hammered into the gap between the ‘ears’ on the axle (the red bit)

As above, the bushes are tapered so should go in partway fairly easily.

Cheers

The eyes tend to want to drag and distort a bit in the opposite direction to the one you are pressing the bush. I found that hitting them smartly with a hammer and cold chisel once the bush was far enough in helped to shock them that final fraction.

PS - the bushes and eyes are of course on the axle, not the trailing arm, so you can't get pre-fitted arms.

Cheers folks,
Thanks for all the help. At the moment it’s reaffirmed all that I have been doing thus far, know about the tapered edge and orientation of the bush and keep arrow down, and made a pipe spacer between ears first as a matter of priority. It’s the crap quality of the threaded bar that’s a sticky point. I like the ideas of longer nuts that may help alot, spring compressor threaded bar great idea to. Fresh eyes on another day might help

P.s, no I have changed the front mounting bushings of the rear trailing arm to and theses are proving even more difficult than the axel bushings to re press. Might have to night the bullet and by the new trailing arms supplied with the front mounting bushings already installed or by a press is what I meant. Apologies

I also renewed the trailing arm bushes at the same time:~
With the help of a vice one went home quite easily-the second required a lump hammer & spacer/guide.

It may help if you use the heat & shrink method ie as used for bearings etc.
Leave the bush in the freezer for as long as possible (overnight won't harm it)
make sure that the hole for the bush is clear of all rust etc- heat the eye up just enough to expand the opening (plumbers gas torch is fine) quickly insert the bush with the aid of the vice or other means- it is important to make sure that the bush enters the opening square on etc.
Lubrication also helps.
If you feel that the eye has too much heat? just have a wet cloth/water handy but I wouldn't think that this is a great problem with a little care being taken.
May save the cost of new arms.
Regards Bob

The easy way is to just clean out the rubber and pop in a set of poly bushes

... I've never done this job, but Classicswede's method is what I would do :-)

That method is fine if the outer sleeve of the bush is in good shape- mine weren’t. They hadn’t been replaced for so long that the outer sleeve had rusted right through, in the photo you can see I stuck a seal pick into the rubber through the remains of the sleeve.

Also, the rear axle is solid and needs to be able to articulate left and right independently of the car body to keep both rear wheels on the ground mid-bend. If you just replace the axle to trailing arms bushes with poly and leave the rest rubber, then the axle will be able to articulate enough. If the plan is to fully polybush the rear then the trailing arm to axle bushes should be left rubber and the others (torque arms, panard bar) swapped to poly.

I swapped all the bushes on my car to poly initially then swapped the axle to trailing arms bushes back to rubber, both for the reason above and also because (at least on my car) the mounting points on the car/axle/trailing arms didn’t line up accurately enough and the rear suspension was binding with a full set of polybushes.

Cheers

Quality replies once again. Thanks again.
Yes poly bush would be an easier instal but a lot more expensive. So not an option for me at the moment.

Heat and spring bloody great how did I forget about that. That’s what’s great about this forum, bouncing ideas arround.

In terms of pressing bushes into the front mounting point of the arms, I’ve lined up a garage that will do it for a drink. I thank my sanity and skin left on my knuckles is worth that much