lower control arm bushing problems

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skep419

skep419

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I took the dart out for the first time this year. after i got back home noticed the left front was sitting low. I jacked the car and at first glance everything looked ok. Tightened the torsion bar up a little to rase the car. than noticed the bushings were hamburger. What else should i look for while i'm replacing the bushings? can the bushing cause the car to sag on one side?
oh and these bushings have less than 5000 miles and got them from napa.

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yes lower arm bushing failure screws up the alignment. 5000 miles could be 5 or more years for some of these rides.
I have to suspect someone torqued tight the pivot pin nuts before lowering the vehicle. This rips the bushings apart internally causing failure in short term.
Same happens to upper arm bushings.
 
It doesn't matter who the supplier is, you need at country of origin. NAPA sells the same crap that everybody else does these days. If it's rubber and not made in North America (Canada and Mexico are much superior to Asia) don't buy it. I would also suspect that RedFish is correct about the tightening sequence...
 
Jim Lusk said:
you need at country of origin. NAPA sells the same crap that everybody else does these days. ...
Click to expand...

THIS

I used to chide the NAPA parts guys "You spose Micke Waltrip uses this crap on his race car?"

Frankly I buy a lot of stuff at O'Reallys. Same Chineseo crap but at least I get a military discount there, for what little that is. Some of the parts "men" know just as little at either place, and frankly, O'Reallys has a couple of females that are both fairly sharp. The young one, at least, is not arrogant.
 
Hard plastic bushings might add a little bit of harshness to road feel but they might last forever too. Grease port pins would prevent a squeak.
 
control arms are now out
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How about the time both upper ball joints were about to fall out. (unscrewed them both with my fingers)
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Also discovered the calipers were backwords. Lower ball joints on the wrong sides. Wowsers
 
WOW...whaddya mean LBJ on "wrong" sides??
Oh while you have the lower control arms out, you may wanna weld reinforcing plates on the bottom of them...PST has them, as well as Mancini I believe...cheap like $20 a pair. Glad yer all in one piece!!
 
Isn't this a good time to do the lower control arm fix to make the arm more stable and improve drivability???

Treblig
 
Had the the lower balljoints reversed so the caliper was on the back side of the rotor. Still not sure what bushings to go with. Thanks for the info on stiffening plate.
 
How do you get the bushings out??? I'm doing the rest on my 76 valiant and not sure how to remove the bushings from the LCA
.
 
haven't done it yet. (last time we used an air chisel) going to try welding a washer and pressing out first. all else fails it sounds like there is a 1 3/8 tap you can buy that works good.
 
you could remove all the old rubber with a drill or a torch. I wouldn't remove either metal shell without having new bushings in hand. Some aftermarket bushing don't have bonded metal shells inside and out.
 
RedFish said:
you could remove all the old rubber with a drill or a torch. I wouldn't remove either metal shell without having new bushings in hand. Some aftermarket bushing don't have bonded metal shells inside and out.
Click to expand...


What Redfish said. torch works well to burn the rubber out. OEM bushings come with outer shell, the "new" poly ones dont. So wait for new ones to arrive before anything...JMO
 
my lowers lasted about 5 years also,they were tightened after the weight was on them too.looks like id go through the whole front end.
 
Wow thanks for starting this thread having the same problem with driver side of my 74 Valiant. would drop low when got in it way more than normal.
Still has what is left of the factory bushings in both LCAs will def need to replace and will go with poly bushings
 
How about checking the K member bolts while you're at it.
There looks to be a big gap between the frame and Kmember in the pic.
 
Definitely have the weight of the car on the arms before you torque the nut. Any suspension bushing wont last long if it's not in the normal ride position when it's tightened. It twists the rubber as soon as the weight is on the component & rips it to death from there.
I drive the old ones out with an air chisel or a ball joint press (even a cheap Horrible Freight one will do). I wouldn't recommend burning it out unless you like to breathe in a lot of smoke, keep blowing out fires & like all the floating bits of rubber soot getting all over everything, not to mention the stink. It just makes a mess. Plus if you have to reuse the metal shells you risk damaging them with the torch. The heat will anneal the metal & make it softer & distorted. Torch would be my last resort.
Regarding the UBJ, the tubular arms may not have the same amount of interference in the threads where the ball joint threads in. You may have to use some red loctite(permanent) on the threads or create some interference of your own in the threads. The interference in there to help keep it from working itself loose.
Good Luck!
 
pics of the lower ball joint fiasco. (caliper to the rear)
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fixed (caliper to the front)



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