mike6466

Ok so for those that don't know me I'm mike and I live in both San Diego county near Temecula. I currently own a 2006 cts v and have enjoyed it. Beginning of my summer came to a stop when my front diff bushing blew out causing my diff to droop and push the driver side inner cv boot to contact the lower control bolt and destroy it... Limped home and took a look and decided to go with revshifts full bushing kit.

Man what was I thinking...

Ok so I wanted to to put some insight on the install process and some suggestions I think would benefit others. When I searched google and the forums I never did find a answer to questions I had. So I want to answer those and provide Info that helped me.


Diff bushings front and rear:

The front bushing wasn't to bad. Because mine was so bad I was able to get the center out pretty well with some good dead blows with a decent size hammer. When it came to the outer ring I used a sawzall blade and cut into the ring then used a flat lifted part of what I cut and then used that part to hammer the whole ring out.

Cradle bushings:

What a pita.. I used the saw blade trick and by the time I got to the third bushing I found the trick. Put the blade in the area of the bushing and cut in a hexagon. Cut straight I to the bushing and once you hear the blade contact metal keep going until it starts to die out again. And do that for each angle. Once you do that give the entire bushing some good blows and the the bushing and ring should come out together. There were times I thought I was gonna cut to far and damage the cradle and I never touched it.

Rear upper control arm bushings:

These were a bit time waster. I tried drilling into the bushing to allow my blade to cut through. Ya not happening. So what I did was torch the bushing. I had a torch from a simple hardware store and put the torch flame In the center metal sleeve and allow that to heat up and melt itself away from the bushing. Then took needle nose and pulled it out of the bushing like it was butter. Then I tried to burn the rest out and much as I could or enough to allow a 1/2 in breaker bar to got through it. Let me explain. Each bushing has a lip on the outer side. So put your breaker bar through one of the bushings and attach a 1 1/16 socket on the end. Just like this one your gunna push the socket against the bushing and it will fit perfect. Then your gonna pin the control arm and hammer the end of the breaker bar to hit out the bushing ring. It works and it takes some accuracy. my weapon of choice.
It's easier to to take the control arm off the cradle but leave it in the ball joint and pin it against the the side of the cradle. Cradle must be off the car

Trailing arm bushing:

Don't make this mistake I though the bushing I was replacing was the bushing actually on the trail arm. In my defence, the bag does say trail arm bushing. It should say trail arm connecting bushing. this is the bushing you wanna change. Lucky I was Able to find a new trailing arm for 20 bucks.

I still have the front control arms and the trailing arms and two rear diff bushing which of anyone has input on how to do those one please let me know.


Conclusion

After all this and making mistakes I learned certain tricks along the way and I would do it again. What helped me the most when put of the bushing in was using long bolts with washers and nuts and compression them in. Your gonna find your own tricks in this. Burning the bushings out sucked cause my garage floor is sticky now but the job is getting done. I'm on day 3 of actually working. Just remember it's gonna be totally worth it.

I'm also putting g force axles. So stoked about that. I know some will say why didn't you just put in the 8.8 or 9 inch. Cause I don't wanna spend 4k on the rear end. Maybe if the actual diff blows I look into it but I'm sure that the diff will just fine for my mods and I'll just have to be a little light on the launch. That's all.

Anyways thought I would share.

Any questions?

Current mods

Ls3 milled heads, comp 231/242 113 cam 617. Lift, pacesetter long tubes, catless straight pipes to t phlo mufflers, kn intake, ls3 manifold, hotkins sway bars, bmr diff bushing brace. Tuned by Cms. Made 427whp 399 ftlbs on a mustang dyno. Bottom end needs a rebuild. Have a little puff of smoke on wot.

ryridesmotox

Damm dude. I live in wildomar, like 5 minutes from Temecula. Do you work on or near base? My buddy was building some hospital on base and said he always saw a car that looked just like mine running around fallbrook.

I'm about to tackle my rear subframe in a few weeks, and motor mounts, and trans mounts, and sway bar bushings... And the clutch and the clutch master. Should be a fun weekend.

Also, if you need a hand, I don't work till 4pm so I'm free most of the early part of the day

mike6466

Ya there is a couple that look just like mine. Saw one in Temecula and one in murrieta and the other day saw one in Fallbrook. I don't work on base or near it. Do it wasn't me. Ya if you ever wanna take a look at mine let me know. Here is my email and I'll send you my number

Mikecobra_1@yahoo.com

AAIIIC

iTrader: (19)

To spare others the time & effort on the cradle bushings - https://creative-steel.com/store/ind...t_detail&p=158.

isis

iTrader: (1)

That thing works great. I like their bushing design better too.

Fuzzy_Wuzzy

iTrader: (8)

I just got done pulling the cradle bushings. It only took me 1-3 cuts through each metal sleeve till the BFH could take care of the rest, it was worth trying after each cut to knock them out as some came out fairly easy for me. in the grand scheme of things I am glad i did not spend the money on the creative steel tool rental as it was not a big deal.

now to try my UCA and see how that works... We'll see if the torch comes out...

Fuzzy_Wuzzy

iTrader: (8)

For the upper control arms I ended up just drilling them out. It is a PITA, you have to keep drilling and drilling from all different angles (cost me a few drill-bits... good thing I was using some cheap ones)

(the smoke from the sawzall in the cradle bushings and the drill in the UCA left me leery of wanting to burn them out.)

For me I found removing the shell easiest to use a hacksaw to cut through one point then I could hammer it out with a hammer and punch. it looks like only the last 1/2 inch of each metal sleeve is really holding it in (based on the metal marks on the outside)