Shop Press for Bushings: Adapters?

I am considering purchase of the following 12-ton, "Central
Hydraulics" A-frame, shop press for removing old control arm
bushings and pressing new ones in place.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=1667

I see people use socket wrenches, sometimes nuts and bolts,
sometimes a bit of pipe to adapt to the particular control
arm (say) and push out the old bushing (or push in the new).

Can anyone who has done this share any other wisdom,
including safety precautions?

Of course I will study the manual like mad.

Having just my one set of wheels, for $80 I think I'd like
to try to do this myself.

Elle wrote:
> I am considering purchase of the following 12-ton, "Central
> Hydraulics" A-frame, shop press for removing old control arm
> bushings and pressing new ones in place.
>
> http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=1667
>
> I see people use socket wrenches, sometimes nuts and bolts,
> sometimes a bit of pipe to adapt to the particular control
> arm (say) and push out the old bushing (or push in the new).
>
> Can anyone who has done this share any other wisdom,
> including safety precautions?
>
> Of course I will study the manual like mad.
>
> Having just my one set of wheels, for $80 I think I'd like
> to try to do this myself.

Most control arm bushings really don't require a whole lot of force to
press in/out, large sockets and/or well chosen pieces of steel pipe
will work fine.

the key is whenever pressing, to never bend the "ears" that the
bushings are pressed into; i.e. when pressing the bushings in, cut
yourself a piece of pipe, angle iron, whatever so that the ears are
held their exact original distance from each other.

Rather than use a press to remove the old bushings, I usually walk them
out with an air hammer and dull chisel. Usually works fine although
sometimes they fight you and need to be mangled a little bit. I've
done this on quite a few old Studebakers (the rubber bushings seem to
disintegrate if you look at them funny) with no problems; other cars
with short/long arm front suspension ought to be similar. I know the
upper control arms on an old A-body MoPar look very, very similar.

good luck,

nate

In article . net>,
"Elle" > wrote:

> I am considering purchase of the following 12-ton, "Central
> Hydraulics" A-frame, shop press for removing old control arm
> bushings and pressing new ones in place.
>
> http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=1667
>
> I see people use socket wrenches, sometimes nuts and bolts,
> sometimes a bit of pipe to adapt to the particular control
> arm (say) and push out the old bushing (or push in the new).
>
> Can anyone who has done this share any other wisdom,
> including safety precautions?
>
> Of course I will study the manual like mad.
>
> Having just my one set of wheels, for $80 I think I'd like
> to try to do this myself.
>
>

A 12 ton may not be enough - Dunno what you're working on, but the
factory manual on my ride tells me that I need to be using an absolute
minimum of a 20 ton press, and recommends a 30, for doing ball joints,
and that if they seat with less than 14 tons of pressure, the control
arm is stretched excessively and needs to be replaced.

As far as "adapters", well... Speaking from a purely "seat of the pants"
perspective, pick something seriously stout. I ended up using the
input-shaft bearing out of an old caterpillar transmission when I did
mine - Diameter was about perfect, catching the "lip" on the ball joint
and letting me mash it as hard as I cared to without crushing the bottom
of the ball joint. (Force was all on the inner race - I wouldn't even
*TRY* using it for something that needed to mash something the outer
race was sitting on)

Anything "lightweight" stands a very real chance of "exploding" under
the pressure and showering you with shrapnel, so a *HEAVY* blanket or
quilt over the whole thing when actually doing the press isn't a bad
idea if you've got any doubts - The blanket may not completely stop
anything that "escapes", but it should slow it down enough that instead
of needing a surgeon to dig it out, you only need to ice a bruise.

--
Don Bruder - - If your "From:" address isn't on my whitelist,
or the subject of the message doesn't contain the exact text "PopperAndShadow"
somewhere, any message sent to this address will go in the garbage without my
ever knowing it arrived. Sorry... <http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd> for more info

Don Bruder wrote:
> minimum of a 20 ton press, and recommends a 30, for doing ball joints,
> and that if they seat with less than 14 tons of pressure, the control
> arm is stretched excessively and needs to be replaced.

I remember the good ol' days, when the spring pressure pulled the ball
joints into the control arm...


Dave

"Don Bruder" > wrote
> "Elle" > wrote:
>> I am considering purchase of the following 12-ton,
>> "Central
>> Hydraulics" A-frame, shop press for removing old control
>> arm
>> bushings and pressing new ones in place.
>>
>> http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=1667
>>
>> I see people use socket wrenches, sometimes nuts and
>> bolts,
>> sometimes a bit of pipe to adapt to the particular
>> control
>> arm (say) and push out the old bushing (or push in the
>> new).
>>
>> Can anyone who has done this share any other wisdom,
>> including safety precautions?
>>
>> Of course I will study the manual like mad.
>>
>> Having just my one set of wheels, for $80 I think I'd
>> like
>> to try to do this myself.
>>
>>
>
> A 12 ton may not be enough - Dunno what you're working on,

It's a 91 Civic Sedan that's seen several years of northern
winters. Some of the bushings are horrendous looking. Ride
seems okay, but ya know the degradation undoubtedly has been
slow but sure. Folks tell me I'll see a difference. Plus the
dr. side is lower by about 3/4-inch. I'm troubleshooting
that and so far have removed the coil/damper assemblies in
the front in their entirety and couldn't find anything wrong
with them. I suspect the bushings are over compressed on one
side. I will be doing more inspecting in the next few days,
under load and not under load. If I actually go at the
bushings, it will be a multi-week project. 'Cause I need a
ball joint separator, gotta buy the bushings, etc. I think I
could potentially take this car to 300k miles if I can get
the suspension (especially bushings and maybe ball joints)
in better shape. It has 175k on it now. I stay well on top
of engine maintenance, and the engine runs well. 40 mpg most
of the year.

Been talking about working on the bushings for a couple
years now. Did some major work on the dr. side rear 1.5
years ago. Hellacious. But I'm better prepared now.

I sure appreciate the input, Don and Nate. All you're saying
goes into my notes.

In article
. net>,
"Elle" > wrote:

> I am considering purchase of the following 12-ton, "Central
> Hydraulics" A-frame, shop press for removing old control arm
> bushings and pressing new ones in place.

Varies by application but;
The shop press is pretty much a waste of time for removing
suspension bushings. Much easier and faster to burn the rubber
out with a propane or whirlwind torch and then drive the bushing
shell out with an air chisel.
The press works fine for installation.

> http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=1667
>
> I see people use socket wrenches, sometimes nuts and bolts,
> sometimes a bit of pipe to adapt to the particular control
> arm (say) and push out the old bushing (or push in the new).

If it's round and scrap, I collect it. Pipe, bearing races,
bushings and as mentioned, sockets all work as press drivers.

> Can anyone who has done this share any other wisdom,
> including safety precautions?

Be careful if it's a stamped control arm, you don't want the
control arm to collapse when you're driving the bushing in or out.
You can cut half rounds of exhaust pipe of the appropriate size
and use as a support in the hollow part of the control arm to
keep it from collapsing.
Make sure that everything is straight and true, if the bushing
cocks going in, it's gonna ooogle out the hole in the control
arm, work slow and deliberate.
Think about the operation as it's going to be performed, consider
what *might* happen when you force this piece into that piece.

The other thing to consider is; whether the parts you're working
on will actually fit square in the press bed, odd-ball shaped
pieces like control arms don't always fit in there the way you'd
like them to, that is why many bushing installation tools are
simple threaded screw type tools.

> Of course I will study the manual like mad.
>
> Having just my one set of wheels, for $80 I think I'd like
> to try to do this myself.

Good luck!

Oh, one other thing...

A sheet of 1/4" Masonite (tempered hardboard) makes good body
armor.
When in doubt and you think there's a chance of parts flying,
hold or prop a piece of Masonite between you and the parts being
pressed.

Much oblighed, aarcuda, especially the safety tip.

Dave, fortunately I did take one automotive suspension class
and saw the weight of the car used to separate the ball
joints (helped by a few hammer blows), and then I think
spring force was used to join them again. Sure helps to have
seen this once.

"aarcuda69062" > wrote
snip for brevity; all comments noted
> A sheet of 1/4" Masonite (tempered hardboard) makes good
> body
> armor.
> When in doubt and you think there's a chance of parts
> flying,
> hold or prop a piece of Masonite between you and the parts
> being
> pressed.

http://home.earthlink.net/~honda.lioness/id15.html describes
the approach I used, with success, to remove the bushings
from my 91 Honda Civic's front lower control arms. It is a
combination of hints from here and elsewhere.

I developed this approach over the last four days, using the
larger bushing on an old, bent control arm for practice.
Today, using this new approach, I was able to remove the
smaller bushing in bout an hour. It required very little
labor.

The remaining question is whether I can now slip the new
bushings into place without a shop press.