2001 V70XC Control Arms / Bushing

[diggity]

Hello,

I'm ordering up parts for a front lower control arm, ball joint, and bearing replacement this weekend. Inner tie rod ends and stabilizer links were done ~20k miles ago, so I'm assuming those are still good. The bearings and ball joints seem pretty straight forward, but I am looking for some expertise on the best way forward with the control arms.

When I inspect the control arms only the bushings appear bad. The control arms themselves look to be in decent shape.. it's a block of aluminum, I don't see what can really "go bad" on them? When shopping around locally for replacement bushings, the parts store mentioned that getting the bushings out and back in (properly aligned) to the control arm can be tough. Has anyone swapped the bushings and reused the control arms? I don't have hydraulic cylinders and special tools referenced here: http://www.volvoxc.com/0/resources/h...m-bushings.pdf .. Is it worth the extra $80 for new control arms (preventative) while I've got everything torn apart and don't have the proper hydraulic tools, etc.. ?

As for vendors.. I'm looking around on ebay and AM AutoParts, Deutsche Parts, or 1A Auto seem to be the predominant choices; is there a consensus around here on who has the best quality/value parts?

Thanks All!

[howardc64]

Pressing the front bushing out and in is the difficult one. Need to anchor the arm against a tool with a special shape. Here is the tool, see how one side is cut out to allow the arm to set properly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkR3HiwWM44

Can also make your own tool

http://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/for...=23405#p122981

Had Volvo shops replace my bushing. Both times they put the front one in incorrectly. Here is my saga

http://howardsvolvos.webs.com/suspension.htm#255257906

Best to just buy arm with bushing already pressed in. But I'd imagine the cheaper arms might have cheaper bushings that fails quicker.

[billr99]

I just replaced the bushes in a pair of OEM arms I had laying around in preparation for replacing the ones on the car later this summer. I used Lemforders and replaced them rather than buying whole new arms just because of the unknown qualities of the bushes in some of the replacement arms. As the OP says, the arms themselves are just lumps of aluminum and my old arms were just sitting around. I was able to rig up a system of a couple of sockets and my bench vise along with liberal quantities of Deep Creep and was able to press out the original bushes relatively easily. Installation was done similarly. A press might have been easier yet but I can't complain despite the fact that I might have just lucked out with the ease of extraction.

Per my recent post on the subject I did not use the specified alignment for the front bush as my lowered suspension would put a twist to the bush when the vehicle was in a at-rest static state. It is my opinion that using the specified alignment on a non-standard ride height car will cause the front bush to fail prematurely. I aligned the bush so that it had no twist in it once the arms are installed.

Cheers,

Bill

[vtl]

I used Lemforder in two our cars, 30k (left) and 40k (right) miles ago on XC70 (did one side at a time on occasion) - still strong.

Pressed in/out with cheap Harbor Freight press:



2005 XC70 was easy one, since LCA has flat surface to put it squarely on a bench vise. 2002 V70 is curved, it was PITA. Probably yours is curved too, so safe your time and buy new LCA, either OE or Lemforder. As mentioned in the link above, you can make a tool to hold LCA in place for bushing removal, and prepare old LCAs for the next change.

[sanfelice]

that's a nice setup right there! thanks for the encouraging post.

personally, I hate to buy all of that aluminum for one stupid rubber bushing.

but I did buy the Meyle HD arms, we shall see how they fare.

[vtl]

I didn't try Meyle HD parts, but regular Meyle suspension parts were dead within first year of moderate use. But there's hearsay on the net that HD is a bit better.

[2002V70XC]

I've found an extremely useful homemade press/pull tool from this thread that might be of interest in removing the control arm bushings: http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthr...heavy-on-pics)


What do you guys think? Can it be used to press the control arm bushing out?

[diggity]

VTL,

I like your cheap harbor freight press idea.. they're ~$120 and difference between just bushings and new arms is ~$80. So for an additional $40 I can own a press and keep my LCAs OEM.. I'm liking the direction this is going!

The new bearings arrive tomorrow, I decided to hold off a bit on the LCA bushings until I address the hum / rattle problem; which I'm fairly convinced is the bearing. If I replace everything at once I won't know what the problem was!

[vtl]

If I replace everything at once I won't know what the problem was!

Pull the axle out of bearing and try to rotate bearing by hand. If you feel it is dry and rotates freely and tad uneven - bearing is bad and will hum. Good bearing has a smooth, viscous feeling. You'll feel the difference immediately if you have a new bearing in hands.

[diggity]

Bearing came in today; installed this evening, and the noise is gone!

LCA bushings are next on the list, but not urgent. . I have some non-car related projects I need to move onto. Angle gear replacement, trans flush, and bearing have taken over my free time of late!