Omega Owners Forum
Omega Help Area => Omega General Help => Topic started by: Nick W on 29 January 2016, 23:06:09
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I refurbished my wishbones with new rear bushes, ball-joints and poly fronts about 4 years ago. Replacing the rear bushes was an easy job in the press, but it's too small to do the fronts. So I spent ages cutting the old ones out. I know the guide reckons that's doable on the car, but there is no way I'd do it like that.
Now the rears are knackered again, and I'm not too keen on the ball-joints so I bought a new pair of wishbones(plus droplinks and tie-rods). I'm going to reuse the poly bushes, which means removing the existing ones.
I'd hoped to use my bearing puller set:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/9qkv2q354qdmv7d/BearingPullerSet%20%281%29.jpg?dl=1)
but the sleeve is too big a diameter to fit on the wishbone.
So I machined a corrector to help:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ybnvnkotzrf525/Corrector.jpg?dl=1)
This was from a 25mm thick 'washer' which I picked up somewhere. Unfortunately, it turned out to be some awful work hardening stainless, so it took bleedin' ages to enlarge the central hole to 60mm!
A drive piece is needed for the other end, so I repurposed an existing tool:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/d4tx2emay1ttyod/DrivePiece.jpg?dl=1)
Assemble with some studding and a couple of nuts:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/56mfp6cxdqzk6v4/CompleteAssemby.jpg?dl=1)
A few seconds with an impact wrench and a spanner
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/1vw39m6p1r34rvz/UndamagedBushEtc.jpg?dl=1)
Now, with this tooling, I would be prepared to do this job without removing the wishbones from the car!
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you clever old stick as my mum use to say....looks good to do the job :y :y
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Nice job there Nick. :y
I made up a similar tool out of thick walled galvanised pipe, a thick stainless dished spacer as a puller, a thick stainless disc for the large pipe end and stainless threaded rod and necessary nuts and washers.
Nowhere near as posh as yours though. :y
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I now know where to come :y
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I used a hacksaw to remove. :)
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Nice work! You could offer this as a service ;)
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I used a hacksaw to remove. :)
I've done far too many bushes that way to know I don't want to again.
I've just done the other arm just using two spanners, and the bush came out easily in under a minute. The other advantage to doing it this way is that it will fit new standard type bushes, which isn't possible with a hacksaw.
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Maybe sell as a removal kit Nick W? Assuming you could be arsed to make more ;D
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Always found the fronts to be a pain to push out with whatever method you use because the collar is so thin. The rears are a lot more beefy so much easier.
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Maybe sell as a removal kit Nick W? Assuming you could be arsed to make more ;D
There's probably some worth in making another along with a similar device for replacing the rear bushes, and having them available for anyone who needs them.
That would require two short lengths of suitable tubing(which I don't currently have) and a little work.
I'll look into it.
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I fitted the new wishbones/track rods/droplinks yesterday, but while soaking in the bath decided that I wasn't happy with this:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/3t3j01wgcdfpeh3/OvalledHole.jpg?dl=1)
That's a rear bush mounting hole, which you can see is quite badly ovalled. This, together with the badly worn bushes and sloppy balljoints was the cause of my knocking wandering front end. This is actually the better one; the other photo didn't come out.
Fortunately, the bolt is quite long, so a little fabrication was in order.
Marked out two 40x40x3 'washers':
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/npnuvm4c7expf4h/WashersMarkedOut.jpg?dl=1)
A few seconds with the grinder and a 9/16" drill bit(I don't have a 14.5mm that would have been better):
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/x2a0gtz9ul973cu/RepairWashers.jpg?dl=1)
And welded in:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/ewklso4gbaieesw/WasherWelded.jpg?dl=1)
As usual, it took longer getting the welder out and putting it away than actually doing the job.
Tightened the nuts, and tried it out: mission accomplished, the nice smooth ride has returned.
Now it needs the alignment done which is a job for Sunday morning after ringing
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Don't mean to rock the boat, but that hole is elongated from new to allow for slight discrepancies in the wishbones... It gets broader over time if the rear bush is inappropriately positioned using a screwdriver etc to lever it square... Often exacerbated by not first opening the mounting cavity a smidgen prior to fitting the arm...
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It's not a good photo, but you can see on the left where the bolt has chewed up the hole edge by about 4mm.
The other side had actually turned into a curved slot, with the edges of the original hole just visible in the centre.
I've run into this sort of thing before on Capri crossmembers, and fixing it in this manner drastically improved the life of the bushes. Which are just as short lived as the Omega ones.