View Single Post
Old Apr 15, 2008 | 07:37 AM
  #33  
dojj's Avatar
dojj
Resident Wrestling Legend
20 Year Member
Liked
Loved
Community Favorite
iTrader: (3)
 
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 50,018
Likes: 259
From: Little India
Default

ok, here's the way to do it like it should be done to make it easy

first of all you need to make sure that the bushes you have fit what bits of metal they need to fit to

so once you have your tca out and the old bushes out, fit the new ones and see if they go into the crossmember before you do anything else

on the 2wd cars with steel crossmembers they tend to distors slightly and need straightening out again with some sort of spreading tool (i use a port-a-power with the opening bit on the end) but with the 4wd cars and their ali crossmembers sometimes it's neccesary to file a bit off the ends of the spacer inserts to ensure they fit into the gap that is there

also make sure that the pinch bolt that holds the tca to the hub is free, on the 4wd cars this is an important bit of kit as they tend to rust into the hole and are very difficult to remove, run some emery cloth through the hole on a dowel or find a round file to clear up the insides when you disassemble it

once you have done this you know everything will slide into place

grease up the bushes before you put them into place

make sure you put the washer onto the arb first, before putting the tca (with both sides of the bush and the steel slider in place) ontothe end of the arb, then put the other washer on and then put the nut onto the end so that you have nipped it up enough so that there is not any major movement in the bush but there is still enough that you can rotate the tca on the arb

now hook the tca into the bottom of the hub

put the bolt through but again, remember that you need to put some copper slip on this bolt before you put it through

you can tighten this one up full as it is, just make sure you don't tighten it to much or use the torx head to do the tightening, that it only there to stop the bolt from rotating and you always use the nut
remember also to insert it fron the front towards the back

you can now put one side of the tca into the crossmember fairly easily and using the bolt, just make sure it's in place, once again ,ensuring that the bolt goes through fron the front

also make sure that, if you are using an extension, you don't involantarily tear the steering bellows

once everything is hooked up you can now use your ratchet strap to hook onto the tca/arb knuckle and pull the other side in towards the locating bolt hole in the crossmember

as mentioned before, sometimes you will need to use a jack to lift the tca into place and you may also need to use a screwdriver to align the holes

what you shoudl do however is use a deep socket and a lock extension on the bolt head and use the leverage from that to find the hole, it is very easy and once the holes has been found you can either tap the end of the extension to drive it home or just use it to turn the bolt until it catches

once both bolts are in the tca/crossmember and both nuts are on the arb ends, you can now take the car off the stands and let it settle
if you can move it forward and backward a little this will also help to settle the bushes into a natural position so that when you tighten them up they are not already under stress which may wear them out quicker or even tear the material

you will have enough space to get under the car and use a spanner and ratchet to tighten the nut/bolt and a socket to tighten the arb nut (turn the wheel to full lock and you can get to these)

i've done a tca swap (original bushes out, polys in) in under 25 minutes with powerflex bushes although i also took nearly 12 horus to do both sides with shitty deflex items that were way way too soft and rubbery which lead to lots of fitting issues
Reply