Dmax/04V

Count eight bushings, and realize this job sucks. Disassembly of the front suspension took about an hour with a set of extra hands. Removing the bushings from the upper control arms was a cake walk with a press. The lower control arm bushings on the other hand took three hours and a strong effort from about three people with more tools than I can count. Moral of the story.... this job is a PITA. Will post pics when I have recovered and start reassembly. Good luck to everyone else about to tackle this undertaking.

Sweetwilliebrownjr

labor guide calls for 2.0 hours for uppers, 2.6 hours for lowers.

ravenls6v

Well once you're ready to..."talk about it" lol...what exactly did you have to do to get the bushings out of and back into the lower arms? Any tips on what worked well or not at all? Were the lower arms a pain to get out of the car at all?

Dmax/04V

Getting everything out of the car was a breeze, disassembly goes as follows:

1. Remove wheels, put brakes on whatever support you have without disconnecting them and remove brake disk. Disconnect wheel speed sensor

2. Make sure your front struts/coilovers are not compressed by the assembly which shouldn't be an issue if the front wheels are off the ground.

3. Undo the tie rod from the knuckle. Remove knuckle from UCA and LCA. One bolt on the top, one on the bottom.

4. Disconnect sway bar endlinks from lca, and unbolt the lower strut/ coilover mount.

5. Undo electrical connections from LCA and move them away (wheel speed sensor cable). Remove LCA (two bolts, come right out with some patience).

6. Drop the Shock tower (or whats left of it), this can be accomplished by removing all the retaining bolts on the under hood side. Easier with two people, one to wrench and one to catch the tower.

7. Once the shock towers are out, you can easily remove the UCA's and deconstruction is complete as far as the car goes.

8. Bushings: UCA bushings will come out on a press without much drama. LCA bushings are trickier, if you have a big enough press you can force them out that way. We used everything from a ball joint press to fire, and then some air hammer/chiseling, and a bottle jack in combination with a ball joint press. It really comes down to how stuck those things are, 7 of mine came out relatively easily, but the last one fought us for a couple hours.

As you can see in the picks below when you are done with the deconstruction there will not be much left in the front wheel wells.

Dmax/04V

Labor guide does not account for bushing swap does it? But disassembly and reassembly without bushing swaps would be more than feasible in that amount of time.

Dmax/04V

Having trouble uploading pics so one by one it is. Pile of parts here.

Sweetwilliebrownjr

It allows an extra .1 per bushing. Of course that's all with air tools, proper press, on a lift, etc.

Dmax/04V

If you have the right tools things would be much easier, I was working out of a full service garage, with a press. The problem is the shape of the LCA's they don't like to fit in small/medium size presses. If you have a large press then no problem.

ravenls6v

Good info here Dmax thanks for posting.

54inches

iTrader: (4)

Yes, thank you for posting.

After doing, Ball joints, Headers, Starter and motor mounts, my S&M side has been fulfilled, maybe next year. lol

I definitely want all of the Revshift bushings.....

Dmax/04V

I wish I could post more pics, but the picture uploader is not my friend at the moment. I'm waiting on new hubs and tie rod ends for the front before I start reassembly, I will take pictures. I figure if I can refresh the hole front end while I'm there why not. I did the rear uca's a while back and it made a huge difference, hopefully the fronts do as well.

jclayc

iTrader: (8)

I'm in the middle of installing these now. Agreed the top ones are easy. I've got a ball joint press (not wide enough) and a big bench press and still can't figure out how to get the lower bushings out - mostly because the shape of the control arms prevents getting a decent angle.

DMAX, which way did you press the lower bushings out? From the inside outward on both?

(Still struggling with these - considering just taking the lowers to a machine shop to press them out. The only alternative I see is to use a hacksaw and cold chisel like people have done with the rear cradle bushings).

Dmax/04V

LCA's used a bottle jack inbetween the two and pushed out, then there was some air hammer usage as you don't want to bend or crack the LCA's with the jack. Once you get one side out you can use the ball joint press on the other. We never came up with a great way to do it and some were stuck worse than others. The last one fought us forever, we ended up punching the core out of it and cutting the metal sleeve after that we chiseled the sleeve and pushed the sleeve out relatively easily.

jclayc

iTrader: (8)

Thanks - anyone have the torque specs for the upper control arm to shock tower bolts and lower control arm to frame bolts? I can find some specs from other cadillac/gm cars that say the LCA to frame bolts are 96 ft/lbs...

How about the upper and lower ball joint to knuckle nuts?