Rear Beam Mount Installation Trick

[Ray]

Sorry for no pics, but for those of us who have done the rear beam bushes a few times and have been really frustrated with them, we came up with a pretty slick idea that works well.

Using a 2 jaw gear puller and a large washer, we find that the conical bushing is VERY hard to stay aligned.

It would be easier to press it in place on a slight angle so that the slip is reduced and all force can be applied such that the bushing MUST go into the beam.

This can be accomplished by taking the oem beam mount bolt, center punching the center top of it (in the head), and drilling the bolt to mimick the shape of the head of the gear puller. using a large washer (we used washers for the engine mount, but the oem front sway washers should work nicely too) around that bolt, put a little force on the bushing and manipulate it so that the bushing is sitting at about 30* facing the beam (bottom part facing the beam so that the puller is toward the rear part of the beam, bottom). Doing this MAKES the bushing go only one way and it simply cannot "pop" out of place. We got the pass side done on the first try and the drivers side done on the 3rd.

Sure as hell beats the other ways i have tried it. Anyway, thought this might help some people.

[hEaT]

Was it 20 minutes tops for both bushings this way? 10x easier than what we were doing before.

[[email protected]]

I'd recommend going with solid mounts instead of wasting time and money on poly bushings.

http://www.mc2racing.com

I had two-piece aluminum units custom made but not everyone has free access to a professional machinist.

I also converted my rear diff mount bracket to a solid mount but I'd buy their unit if I had to do it again. Huge pain to get the bushing out.

[vcallaway]

What kind of noise and vibration increase did you notice by going to solid mounts?

[Grayson]

What kind of noise and vibration increase did you notice by going to solid mounts?

I've found NVH opinions to be as varied as everyone's faces. Some people solid-mount the beam and claim absolutely no problems whatsoever with NVH. Some people install polyurethane beam mount bushings and complain about the increase in NVH. I've had people state that my nylon STA bushings are too stiff, and that nylon shouldn't be used in that position. When they hear that Cosworths came right off the showroom floor with STEEL STA bushings, they don't know what to say.

It really just boils down to this. If you race your car, and maybe mix in the rare street drive, solid mount the beam. If you drive your car on the street a lot, and maybe mix in a little racing, then stick with polyurethane. If you race, there's no reason to put up with compliance. If you only drive on the street, there's no reason to put up with harshness.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

I have the factory tool-kit for installing those bushings - is that cheating?

[Ed Lijewski]

I have the factory tool-kit for installing those bushings - is that cheating?

Wipe that smirk off your face and ship that tool to Grayson so he can machine-copy it and offer it at MC2Racing.com.

YMMV

[DPDISXR4Ti]

I have the factory tool-kit for installing those bushings - is that cheating?

Wipe that smirk off your face and ship that tool to Grayson so he can machine-copy it and offer it at MC2Racing.com.

Sounds like a futile effort to me, as he'd probably need to price it at $100 for the 3 piece set and then nobody would proceed to buy it, given the price.

[Ray]

Brad you have a picture of this magical tool?

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Brad you have a picture of this magical tool?

Sorta.... See if you can find them (3 pieces)

[RoadBuilder]

I just got done replacing all my bushings including the beam mounts (thanks Grayson). In doing this I had the entire beam out of the car. I tried the gear puller but quickly gave up on that. Instead I lifted the beam with my engine hoist and positioned the beam mount area in a hydraulic press. With the bushing lined up with it's hole and positioned on top of a sturdy steel plate, I placed a 6" long piece of 4" exhaust tubing over the hole in the beam. The 4" tubing fit perfectly. Put another steel plate on top of the tubing and started pumping the press. After a few pumps and a loud BANG, viola, the bushing was in place. Spin the beam around, repeat the proceedure, and you're done. Certainly took less than half an hour to do both bushings and that included rounding up the exhaust tubing and cutting it to size. Now I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures to share with you all.


By the way, I installed Grayson's Optimum car kit and here are a few observations:

This is a street driven car and the ride IS noticable harsher. Given what the kit contains, however, it's about what I was expecting. It doesn't help that while I had the car torn apart I decided to fix my non-functional hatch latch. Once it was apart I found that the housing was broken so I've been driving around with the hatch un-latched until the new parts get in. This results in a fair amount of noise from the hatch bouncing and squeaking.

At the same time that I did the bushings, I up-graded the phone-dials with 195-65 14 Perelli's to a set of ATS rims with 205-55 15 BFG G-force Sports. All I can say is WOW!!! Between the tires and the bushings, this thing handles incredably well. In two weeks of trying I've yet to lose traction or even get the tires to squeal. This includes things like 30 mph 90^ turns from one street to another. Very neutral handling.

It does seem that the car needs a little more caster. It's just a little twitchy in straight line cruising. Doesn't track real well.

The hardest part of the entire install was getting the T-40 bolts out of the half shafts. I broke three bits and twisted the 4th. After I was done Grayson recommended giving each bolt a good whack on the head before trying to losen them. Already had them out so I don't know how well that would work. I wound up having to cut the heads off of 5 or 6 of the bolts. I just used a pnuematic cut off tool to slice the head off as close to the half shaft as I could then ground the remain portion away. After the heads were off the bolts came right out.

All in all replacing all the bushings (including the rack bushings) took the better part of two long days.

Fred

[Grayson]

That's a hell of a first post Fred!

It does seem that the car needs a little more caster. It's just a little twitchy in straight line cruising. Doesn't track real well.

There's actually a lot of people that have this issue. The caster theory is a good one. Another theory I like to reference has to do with worn steering racks. Basically, I'm curious if the age of everyone's rack (can we assume 110k average?) has led to it being a bit sloppy. Before, with the old mushy bushings and mushy tires, the sloppiness of the rack was hidden. Now with responsive tires and bushings, the potential rack play is exposed. I'd love to see what would happen if a rebuilt rack was swapped in.

Theory #3 is toe. My car is toed-out almost beyond spec intentionally, since toe-out helps in autocross.

[BeefFajitas]

It's been awhile since I did it, but I used a 6" PVC coupler, a steel plate with a hole in the middle, 1/2" threaded rod and nuts/washers, etc. Place PVC over bushing, place plate on top of PVC, put rod through bushing and plate, thread on washers/nuts of both ends, place impact on one nut and wrench on the other, pull trigger, watch bushing come out. To install, put PVC on one side of beam, bushing on the other, follow previous procedure, watch bushing pop into the beam. Didn't take long at all.

I can mock it up on a spare beam I have and take some pics. Took about $8 to put my "tool" together.

[vcallaway]

Mine is very twitchy as well. I blamed it first on not doing the rear bushings yet.

I have a rebuilt rack, new tie rods and aluminum rack bushings. All front bushings are nylon.

Because of running shorter tires on the front and my spring setup I have more negative caster than spec. It is going to be a couple of months before I can afford to do the coilover conversion and buy tires. I hope that getting the car balanced will get rid of that as well as my understeer.

[pyropete125]

heres the tool i made to remove the bushings off the trailing arm





works mint!

pete