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MG MGB Technical - V-8 A-Arm Bushing Tip

I've been trying to rebuild the front suspension on my 72 mgb roadster.
Thanks to all the help here, I got her disassembled, cleaned up and ready to put back together.
I bought the V-8 upgrade bushings for the A-Arms.
Sounded easy enough to push them in, but found out it was more of a challenge than what I thought.
I initially got them nearly flush on one side by using my trolley jack and pushing against bottom of car frame.
That's as far as I could get. The urethane seemed to just want to bulge and couldn't get equal amounts on both sides of A-Arm.
I finally had to bring them into work and use an arbor press. Again, the urethane was bulging when I used a cyclinder of equal diameter to push them through with a cylinder backing up the A-Arm diameter.
I finally got success when I put some dish soap on the bushings and used a cylinder to push with that was slightly bigger than the metal part, but smaller than the OD of the urethane.
Luckily I have a decent shop at work or this would be a real pain without the arbor press and assortment of cylinders to work with.
Just a watchout for doing it yourself with few tools.

Best regards,
Doug
DT Toms

Go and buy some rubber lubricant (no - not that sort, silly) in the UK Halfords sell it - maybe Wall Mart in the US.

Spray the bush and it will slip in with a light tap from a hammer!
Chris at Octarine Services

Inerested in the A arm bushing replacmentHowever l am having trouble getting the wishbone link bolt free
part 30 in section K of the manual.
I have sprayed penetrating oil and whacked it with a
4 pound sledge to mo avail. Any suggestions ?
thanks Paul Hicks
Paul Hicks

I made up a press at home using a bolt and pieces of ally plate and a socket, I put some swarfega on the bush as a lubricant .Worked fine.
S Best

In replacing the bushings in my TD, I found that putting the bushing in the freezer for a day gets it hard and small enough to make this a bit easier.

NOTE: Don't know if this applies to all bushing materials
Bruce Cunha

http://www.shadetreemg.com/v8_bushings.htm
gerry masterman

is it necessary to use rubber lubricant? Could Brake Fluid do the same job? What about silicon spray?
Philip

I use hand soap for lubricating the bushes. I push the old bushes out with a 6in. vise and two sockets. I install the bushes with the vise until the end of the bush cantacts the jaws of the vise, then I add a socket with a bigger inside ID than the bush and center the bush with vise. That has always worked for me. FWIW,Clifton
Clifton Gordon

I did mine on the car following the tip from the Moss Motors catalog.
Carl Floyd

Phillip, NEVER use brake fluid as a lubricant! VERY Corrosive.

Dan H.
Dan Hanson

I used no lubricant on mine. I just froze them and pounded them in using a 2lb. hammer and a large socket. Easy as pie! I feared that a lubricant would have long term effects on the rubber.
Jeff Schlemmer

I've had to destroy both A-arms (I was replacing them anyway) by cutting through to almost the wishbone drop-link bolt then chiseling the gap open before I could free the drop-link from the A-arm. Fortunately the top bolt came undone in both cases allowing me to work on the bench.
Paul Hunt

This thread was discussed between 01/11/2004 and 05/11/2004

MG MGB Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGB Technical BBS is active now.