Wishbone bushes

[Clifford Pope]

This is a tip rather than a question.
I recently replaced all the bushes on the front suspension wishbones, and was alarmed to find that most of the bolts (3 per side) holding the rear bush brackets to the chassis section ripped the threads out of the captive nuts when I unscrewed them.The car is only 9 years old, and everything looks pristine underneath. The bolts were not rusty, but seem to be of a peculiar self-tapping design that self-destruct when removed.
With hindsight I would have drilled small holes in the box section and squirted in WD 40 first.

My solution was to grind off the one accessible captive nut and use an ordinary nut and bolt, and to drill holes for 2 new bolts through the accessible flanges instead of into the box section.
I suppose other solutions would have been to try tapping threads for larger bolts, or as a last resort to weld the bracket in place.
Has anyone else encountered this problem?

I'm going to attempt to replace the drivers side front rear wishbone bus just as Clifford has explained here in this post.

Assuming i get this bracket off ok with bolts, is it then a simple unscrew and replace of the bush?

[Andrew (UK)]

I have done this job on both sides of two different cars, an 88 and an 86. I had no problems removing the bolts. One of the brackets on the 86 had worn so that the bushing was loose in the hole so I had to replace it with one from a scrap yard. The real trick with this job is torquing to spec with the weight on the suspension. I found you had to leave the bracket bolts loose when assembling and lowering the car. Then you could loosen or even remove the bracket bolts so that you could get enough swing on the torque wrench to tighten the bushing nut to spec, still wasn't easy though.

I used a hide/copper mallet to knock the old bushing out and the new bushing in. It should be a tight and solid fit but you should not need a press to do it.

[classicswede]

Over the years I have never had this happen. When you consider that we have done over a 100 of these it does go to show have rare this is to happen.
Is the a change on the very last couple of years production?

[Clifford Pope]

It's a very similar problem to the recent one I had getting anti-roll bar bush bolts to engage. Volvo seem to have started fitting a peculiar kind of use- once- only kind of captive nut, with a bolt that self-destructs on withdrawal.
With hindsight perhaps lubricating the bolt while still partly engaged would have mitigated this annoying feature.

I've had this constant knocking noise from the fron drivers side since i've had the car and last weekend while changing the wheels decided to have a look at what the bushes were like. The antiroll bar bushes look like they've seen better days but not worn so i "shook" the wishbone and it moved at the rear with the same knock i'd hear inside the car.. I hope its not a worn bracket!

[Clifford Pope]

It'll be the rubber doughnut bush. You can lever it with a screwdriver and see that the nut isn't actually pulling it tight. It's tempting just to try tightening the nut or putting more washers behind it, but I don't think that works because of a stop on the shaft.
The left hand one isn't too difficult (as long as your bolts don't behave like mine) but tightening the one on the right is tricky because the exhaust pipe gets in the way of any known shape of spanner.

[Mike_Brace]

I normally do not fix bracket to body until retaining nut is fully tightened (levering wishbone down a little) and ensure it is at the correct angle to bolt up after. Sorted!

Mike

[morsing]

I did this on my '89 last summer and didn't really have any problems except it was a PITA to tighten the nut after fitting the rear bracket onto the body!

[classicswede]

We did most of ours at the time when volvo fitted the hollowed out bush. It became a very quick job to do. We still keep the brackets with new bushes fitted (both rubber and poly). Makes life easy when you press in a batch at a time.