continued from last post do to picture limits
The last thing of the night was work on the front lower control arms. Iv'e done bushings and ball joints a few times but never with nice new finshed pieces. The ball joints worked out pretty good. I used duct tape and pieces of broken up paint sticks to push against. It worked out great with no damage to the finish.
I then went to the bushings and things didn't go quite as well. My first idea was to just put both bushings in and press against each other till they seat. WRONG!!! The arm started bending and when I released pressure it did not defect all the way back. Now I have to figure out a way to bend it back without damaging the finish. I've got an idea I will try Sunday when I am off again.
The next arm I did a different way and it worked great. I got a piece of 1/2" all thread to pull against. I then cut a piece of pipe to just smaller than the inside width cut it in half and wraped with tape. I then cut a piece of 3/8" plate in a circle and drilled a hole in the middle. I welded that to a 2" iron pipe coupler and wrapped with tape. Then slid the halves to keep the end of the arm from pushing together. Finally bolted it all together untill the shells were seated. Once I made the tool all 4 bushing were took less than 10 min total.
