jzz30 Posted December 13, 2003 Posted December 13, 2003 hey i just did a lower suspension arm replacement but i dont know how to post pics on the posts so i put all of the pictures in the gallery step by step so enjoy and all questions welcome!! oh and if anyone knows how to take those pictures and put them in the post your time will be much appreciated!
Bubbles Posted December 14, 2003 Posted December 14, 2003 You're the first to give some nice pictures. I have my winter break right now, so I'm going to start with my Daizen bushing replacement. I was wondering where you got that ball joint separator. I have little knowledge of ball joints, but when you used the ball joint separator, did you reuse the ball joint, or did the new control arm have a new ball joint? I don't want to :chairshot: my ball joints.
AWJ Posted December 14, 2003 Posted December 14, 2003 That is very nice. I see you put instructions in as the titles. If you don't mind and have some time, you could do a little write up on the job and send it to me. I will post it in our workshop tutorials. All credit will go to your user name. PM me for e-mail address. You can type it in word if you like. Or I can take the text from your pictures and use img links to document it in one thread for you there. I will put a link to it in the faq. Just let me know how you would like to do it. Great work. Is that part the lexus control arm? Or did you use the Supra arms? Looks very good. Bubbles, looks like the new piece has a new ball joint.
jzz30 Posted December 14, 2003 Author Posted December 14, 2003 ill send an e-mail soon and yes the ball joint comes with the new arm. the package next to the arm comes with the arm and it is just a new crown nut and clip(almost like a cotter pin) that is an SC arm I should call up toyota and see if the part numbers are the same. (thats the passenger side if anyone was wondering.) the ball joint puller i bought from NAPA or Sears(craftsman) but i think its NAPA because it doesnt have a name on it. the gap between the two fingers needs to be 1and 3/8 inch gap or 35mm(3.5cm) and thanks on the complimets of the pictures if you noticed i tried to show the size of the socket (most times) on what i was taking off.
hershy67 Posted December 14, 2003 Posted December 14, 2003 If you don't mind me asking, how much was the arm? My lexus dealer in brooklyn quoted me well over $400 for 1 arm. Then I called my regular toyota dealer and they quoted me $325 for 1 supra arm. Those arms are beautiful along with the ball joints. i'm jealous <_< just kidding..
jzz30 Posted December 14, 2003 Author Posted December 14, 2003 yea the arm was a bit over 500 but i got it for a bit over400 i dont remember the exact price. try and call toyota and see if the nubers match up. the arm in the picture is a passenger side.
Bubbles Posted December 16, 2003 Posted December 16, 2003 Well... I asked my cousin to let me borrow his camera, and he said he'll bring it tonight. So I got impatient and borrowed a camera from a friend. I took some pictures but the camera had no more power. I tried to take off the driver's side lower control arm. I got all the bolts off except the cam nuts. Those need 166 lb-ft of torque or so to budge off. I tried using my torque wrench w/ 145 lb-ft torque but I maxed out. I guess I'll buy a combination wrench and use that breaker bar. Hmm... where did you get that breaker bar jzz30?
AWJ Posted December 16, 2003 Posted December 16, 2003 Sometimes you can borrow tools with a deposit from stores like autozone. Bring them back undamaged and get your money back. If you don't want to buy them that is.
jzz30 Posted December 16, 2003 Author Posted December 16, 2003 my breaker bar is only about a 1 and 1/2 breaker bar and if you look closely in the picture there is a red handle on it that is off of my floor jack to get some extra leverage. so you can use a pipe or something to make it easier.
jzz30 Posted December 16, 2003 Author Posted December 16, 2003 yea cant live without it i tried without it and it felt like my back was going to go out
Bubbles Posted December 16, 2003 Posted December 16, 2003 OK I finally got the arm off about 3 hours ago. I went to Home Depot and I bought an 8 foot long 1 5/8 inch diameter pipe. I also bought a combination wrench (a ring socket on one side and that's C socket on the other). The pipe was too long so I hand-sawed it off (PITA) and still it was too long. I gave up on that and used the jack to put all the leverage onto the comination wrench. It worked very well. The front arm weighs quite a bit. A dirt covered one weighs 15. pounds I took the pictures already, but my cousin is sleeping so.... Tomorrow it is.
Bubbles Posted December 17, 2003 Posted December 17, 2003 Aite, here's a whole mess of pics starting from gallery 15 to whenever. I'll upload more tommorow when I tidy up. A BEAUTIFUL DAY IT WAS
AWJ Posted December 17, 2003 Posted December 17, 2003 Wow. It does look like that here. What a nice sky! That's a nice looking sky. Is that your new bowl? I might borrow that pic and stick it in the workshop thread too.
Bubbles Posted December 18, 2003 Posted December 18, 2003 Bowl as in house? No it's my parents, and I live in it. OMG, I just finished the bushings about an hour ago. Total time was about 12 man hours. Even if I'm half a man, that's 6 hours! Well... an hour or so was for taking pictures and making my control arm looking nice and clean. I also had some trial and error issues. Time would be cut drastically if a partner helped out. The longest part was burning all the rubber off. Someone used a drill bit wire brush and I think that is the best because it hooks up to a power tool. Sandpaper just doesn't cut it. Well I took it for a test drive and my alignment is slightly off because I wander to the left, but the steering feels tighter, and I don't know if that's good or bad. Going over speed bumps definitely sounds different, but I'll figure out how it sounds like. The car basically goes where the steering wheel goes, and I can't ask for more. However, my good old bushings did the same, just a little less responsive. Ride quality hasn't changed, for I only did the lower bushings. So... if you're twice the man I am, this project should take you 6 hours. But since there's pictures floating everywhere and jzz30's tutorial, this should take you less than 6 hours. Only if you're twice the man I am :P I'll post again while I ponder about the roads I take my car on.
jzz30 Posted December 18, 2003 Author Posted December 18, 2003 man that took you 6 hours? i took off and put the new arm in in an hour and a half and thats taking pictures too. so i figure a generous 3 hours for taking off and putting on time for both arms, how long did it take you to put those new bushings in? i would think it would take about an hour per side of cleaning the old bushing out and putting in? maybe im wrong but i still want to be able to beat your challenge man that burning rubber must have stunK!
Bubbles Posted December 18, 2003 Posted December 18, 2003 My face was black. The time to change the second arm boiled down to: 45 minutes taking off 2 hours burning and sanding 1 hour installing (the metal sleeve didn't go in the bushing all the way) The 12 or so hours that took me also included taking off the engine cover, jacking up vehicle three times (I finally figured that the highest setting is easiest to work on), taking wheels off twice (you have to stabilize suspension when you're done), taking pictures, cleaning parts, dealing with worn threads on screws and nuts, and simply trial and error. The first part of taking off the rubber is taking that big metal sleeve off. That took me less than 5 minutes. The rest of the rubber was tough to get at because it would always be on fire. Once most of the rubber burned off there would be a thin layer of rubber. It's kind of like that membrane lining in some of those steaks that you eat, very chewy. That thin layer is what took me forever. I couldn't sand it because the sandpaper would get clogged up. I should have bought a wire brush, but I ended up burning the hell out of that layer and using a small flathead to chisel the rubber off. Sanding was simple but took a while. I think I overdid it when I sanded the arm (the inside was shiny). I guess I could have sanded it a bit less, but I didn't want to take chances at having my bushings squeak and what not. I'll get some more pics up when my cousin gets back here. I'm going to go get an alignment now, so when I drive back I'll give some thoughts on the bushings. I haven't done the rears so I don't expect an exotic driving experience.
TallKDR Posted December 18, 2003 Posted December 18, 2003 Did you replace with polyurethane? If so, where did you get them from, is there a whole kit, and much how? I did the ENTIRE suspension on my 280Z, probably about 30 pieces. You thought a 90s lexus was tough to loosen up bolts and bushings, try a 76 :P I just busted out the blow torch. Also, why did you replace the entire arm? Ive seen them mentioned a few times before, do they go bad (bend?), or did yours just fail for a specific reason like an accident?
Wick Posted December 18, 2003 Posted December 18, 2003 Same question here, I thought you were replacing the whole lower arm. What brand of bushings did you use? Wick
Bubbles Posted December 19, 2003 Posted December 19, 2003 The reason why I changed my bushings was because I wanted a little more responsiveness, and I read that the bushings that are in the control arm wear out. When I looked at my bushings, they looked in pretty good shape even after 135k miles. So you may or may not want to change the bushings. Jzz30 has the picture of the damaged bushing: My control arm has one worn out bushing (there's two bushings on the lower control arm) and the other is good: There are 3.5 options that I know of to service your control arms: 1. Daizen Sport Tuning www.daizensporttuning.com sells polyurethane (which is plastic but this polyurethane isn't like the plastic on your keyboard- it's a tad bit softer) They are sold in two boxes, front and back. Front is around 100 dollars and the Rears are at around 160. Installation is a fairly long for a mechanic and should run you around 500-900 dollars. I got these bushings from www.tmengineering.net (well... I actually won them) 2. There are "rubber = stock " bushings in Australia from Andrew Vlamos? Well the website you can peek at is http://www.planetsoarer.com/bushes/bushes.htm or http://www.planetsoarer.com/upperbushes/up...upperbushes.htm I'm not sure about the installation but it will cost quite a bit because you have to do similar procedures with the Daizen bushings. The cost for the product is $370 for all lowers (US or AUD dollars)? 3. You can buy a new control arm and replace it so you get more of a "new Lexus" ride quality. The new control arm also has a new ball joint, so you can get that piece of mind protection you've always wanted. Labor isn't as intensive as the above, and you do this yourself relatively easily. But the cost is a lot. Was it $400 an arm? 4. There's a Nolothane bushings that are made of stiffer plastic than the Daizen. I have no more info on that.
jzz30 Posted December 19, 2003 Author Posted December 19, 2003 hey bubbles do you think a hole saw may have worked to get the majority of the rubber out then maybe a sharp rasp used for wood working would have worked? well for you people wondering why i changed to whole arm it is because the ball joint had play in it too and the sometimes bumpy roads in hawaii are just irritating with that poping noise.
Bubbles Posted December 19, 2003 Posted December 19, 2003 I should have used this, it should have wacked 1 1/2 hours off of 6 total. Home Depot's Drill Bit Wire Brush.
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