Homemade upper control arm bushing removal

brrian

Greasemonkey
Jul 7, 2022
244
231
43
Pittsburgh, PA
Last week I took my upper & lower control arms out. I was able to get the LCA bushings & ball joints out using Advance's rental kit, but I couldn't use it for the uppers because of the shaft, and nobody local had a rental kit with the forked end to get around the shaft. So, I made my own. I made an inner plate, notched to fit around the arm, a tubing spacer, and outer plate. I assembled those around the bushing and used (2) 6" C-clamps to 'squeeze' it & pop the bushings out. Two popped out simply from clamping pressure, and two needed a tap with a hammer, but they all came out. Cool.

I'll hang onto this for a few more days until I get the new bushings in, then I'm done with it & if anybody here is interested in it I'd be happy to send it for the cost of shipping. I can also make more if more people are interested.

IMG_20221129_205104.jpg
 
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69hurstolds

Geezer
Supporting Member
Jan 2, 2006
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That's thinking outside the box. Necessity is the mother of invention. You're not the first who's took the bull by the horns. Things worked out great!(y)
 
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CopperNick

Comic Book Super Hero
Supporting Member
Feb 20, 2018
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Canada
Maybe a second shot of that inner plate to give us a better perspective on how it fits onto the cross-shaft? Otherwise, nicely done.



Nick
 
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brrian

Greasemonkey
Jul 7, 2022
244
231
43
Pittsburgh, PA
See below. The plates are sets of 3/16" steel (what we had) & I doubled them up for strength. & I left the C-clamps at work so I mocked it up with some bar clamps.

The hardest part was holding all of the pieces in place until I got the clamps tightened - no different then the rental kit though. If I had to redo it I could solve that...

IMG_20221129_221836.jpg


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Clone TIE Pilot

Comic Book Super Hero
Aug 14, 2011
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Galaxy far far away
We should have a homemade tool section here.
 
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Texas82GP

Just-a-worm
Apr 3, 2015
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Spring, Texas
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CopperNick

Comic Book Super Hero
Supporting Member
Feb 20, 2018
3,347
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Canada
Per-fect!! Just exactly the angle and details that I was hoping for. As of right now I have nothing on the to do list that involves extracting dead bushings from upper control arms, BUT, there is always tomorrow...............................

brrian, thanks for posting the additional shots.



Nick
 

88 Gutlass

Greasemonkey
Jan 1, 2020
102
249
43
Ga
When I did my front suspension I just replaced the uppers, I didn’t want to have to mess with the bushings.
 

mc1984ss

Master Mechanic
May 18, 2020
293
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Another method is to take a drill and drill out as much rubber from the bushing that you can and pull the rest out with a pliers. Then take a hammer and chisel to collapse the pressed in sleeve. Once the sleeve collapses enough you can pull them out by hand
 

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