Front Suspension

[maxcaddy]

Unfortunately, when jacking it up today to change the front ABS sensors, I spotted that the front nearside bottom wishbone mountings are starting to wear out .

 

By which I mean the bushes which are fitted into the big aluminium cross member, the member to which the front subframe mounts underneath, and the top of it bolts to the body,. There are the location bushes for the ends of the bottom wishbone/suspension arm/lower control arm (or whatever you know it as) which seem to be on there way out.

 

Assuming this is something that does happen to old V'gers, anybody on here done them, or got a view ?  

 

Cheers  .

[JonWright]

Try looking on YouTube - you will see a few videos.  I know you have to effectively drop the frame which was in my case quite difficult as the bolts attaching it to the body had gone rusty - but you can get to them from underneath - so ensure they are well lubricated before even trying.  A good impact wrench helps.  Although you can buy the bushes separately, it is actually easier to buy the whole wishbone with the bushes attached - as they are really difficult to remove!

[maxcaddy]

Cheers, good link  ,

 

I do often forget Youtube as its often more full of someone's half capable spiel, rather than good pointers. However this fella 

seemed to show what's needed.

 

Seems exceptionally straight forward other than dealing with rusted bolts, but I do need to have another look at mine (when its not quite so cold & damp), because it seemed to me that the bush was captive in the alloy crossmember, and not sandwiched between the crossmember and the subframe. Fortunately its MoT time in a few weeks, so I'll see what they say as I might have to change other parts while I'm underneath  .

[maxcaddy]

Well as expected it failed the MoT on the rear bush, so I followed the guide above and it went well until I tried to separate the bottom plate from the Aluminium chassis section. With all the bolts removed including the long one which goes through the big rubber spacer and holds the whole lot onto the car that rubber spacer/bush won't come apart !!!.

 

With the main bolt out you can lever a 70mm square top-hat plate out leaving a 70mm square rubber spacer/bush, but the bottom plate won't pull over it, and it doesn't seem to let me separate it off the Alloy sub chassis. 

 

I could perhaps pry/cut the bush off, but without stripping the whole front suspension out, I can't see how a new bush could be fitted in its place ?

 

Anyone else been stuck with this 

[maxcaddy]

Okay, carried on and prised out the Bush, it had to come out one way or another, and with that out the sub frame was lowered and the Arm came out.

 

Old Bush off, new one on, well on once I spent a long time cleaning the inside of it out of over-rubberisation (note to self - do not but cheap eBay replacement parts), and now all back together   .

 

Now to address the other thing it failed on, smoky engine bay  .