hints on pressing out bushings?

[Orin Eman]

> I just picked up a 20 ton shop press so I could work on my bushing project
> for my 4ktq (I got a spare set of subframes that I'm pressing out the
> bushings/powdercoating (red!!)/and rebush it), and in trying to press out
> the bushings today I ran into some snags.  I'm finding it really difficult
> to brace the frames in such a way that everything is level and I get a good
> solid shot at the bushing...

A very big socket under the subframe big enough to receive the bushing?
I think we borrowed a cup from the Schley wheel bearing tool for
5k subframe bushings.  It can take a couple of people to wrestle the
subframe into place...

Nevermind the fact that doing the control arms
> seems next to impossible:  it looks like I can only press the bushing out
> one way and the arm tries to hit the bottle jack when I do that.  The best I
> could do was to tear out the center of the rubber leaving the metal sleeve
> behind...  Has anybody done this themselves with any form of success?  What
> did you do to jig up each piece?

There are a couple of ways of doing this.  If the bed of the press is
thin enough or has a wide enough gap, you can put the a-arm with one
leg below the bed of the press, the other leg rests on a socket of
the size required to push the bushing out and you use a socket big
enough to receive the bushing to push the arm down.

Alternatively, you can build a tool for it... Sean Upchurch
made one out of a couple of strips of steel, some bolts and some
2x4s...   The strips of steel go parallel, pieces of 2x4
at the top and bottom and a space in the middle for the other
leg of the control arm.  He may have a steel plate at the top too,
I don't remember, but it is definitely a 2x4 end on a socket at the
bottom that presses the bushing out.  (If this tool doesn't have
a steel strip built in across the top, we have some pieces of steel
that we use to distribute the load...)

Orin.