My daily driver Celica has a seized bushing in the rear suspension.
It's in one of the suspension arms that link the bottom of the hub to
a fixed point at the centre of the car. (where the diff would be, except
it's front-wheel-drive)
The middle-of-the-car-end bushing is seized or sticking, so it works
but makes a horrible squawking sound when the suspension moves a lot.
It's amplified by the bodywork so in the car so it's pretty loud and
irritating.
Now, this happened to me on another bushing in the car when it was
newer and I cared more, so I took it apart and replaced it. It was a
nasty job and since my car is >10 years old now, I don't want to repeat
it just to make a noise go away.
Very basic question, how do these inner bushings normally work? Is
the middle part held solid, the outer moves, and the rubber takes up the
motion? There is only a few degrees of rotation in the whole travel...
I'm trying to get a feel for what surface is slipping that's causing the
squawk...
I don't mind taking off the end that is seized, but to remove the
other end to change the whole arm is a major job, that end has one large
bolt that joins about 5 suspension components so it's a pretty major
undertaking, gotta support the whole car and the bolt broke on me last
time, which made it all worse.
I've only seen the arm sold complete, not as a bushing, but I might
be able to match a generic one if I could size it in advance, and drop
and replace. Do bushings on modern suspension arms normally come out
like on vintage cars?
Maybe a lube-only solution? Drop, clean, lube, replace? Drill hole,
inject lube, replace?
Just hoping to avoid the total disassembly from last time, which
turned out to be a lot of work just to solve a squeak.
Tx. Merry Christmas all.
--
Trevor Boicey, P. Eng.
Ottawa, Canada, tboicey@brit.ca
ICQ #17432933 http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
Now 10% more grizzled.
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