Project C4, 85 Corvette

[Steve85]

Thanks to DJ and Jason (NTIman) for access to shop press'.

This job was a BITCH! All because one of the bushing has to push all the way through the hole rather than half from each side.

It starts with making a brace for the A-arm, I used angle iron with a little notch cutout, so you can press out the crossbar that has the bushings. Out wasn't so bad, pressing the cross bar back in with the poly bushings took hours of lubing, resetting the stuff in the press, grinding a bit on the arm, hose clamps to keep the bushing from ballooning out while being pressed in, and so on....I wanted to get more pics but just didn't have it in me to try and document it very well. Didn't help that it took 90 minutes from Chantilly to Tysons Corner just to start the job.

It was getting late so I got both lower arms done and one upper done at DJs before I quit. Live to fight another day. A few days later, I contacted Jason who works at Kern Toyota in Winchester and he was gracious enough to sneak me in the back door after hours and help me use their press. He also managed to answer 1,472,569 questions from two little boys. Thanks for the tip to flip the assembly over and re-try!



Pressing out the lower control arm bushings was very straight forward.



I went with offset bushings here that push the lower control out 1/8". The set screws make sure they maintain the position.



You just drill and tap two holes, press in the bushings, align properly and put the screws in.





With some timely nice weather for garage work and the distractions visiting grandma and grandpa, I took my time cleaning everything and putting it all back together. It was very difficult not to get carried away trying to polish this stuff.



I think I am now ready for a complete alignment that will be somewhat aggressive.