I just finished these two jobs. Oil cooler lines on a friends 300TDT and the LCA bushings on my 83' 300D. For the cooler lines I followed the write up on Diesel Giant's website. Also replaced the motor mounts and engine shocks at the same time. I did not need to make the shortened special wrench that is pictured on the website. A standard 1 1/16th" wrench worked fine for me. Two of us were able to complete the job in four hours.


The LCA bushings took much longer, but I did pads, rotors, bearings and shocks at the same time. To remove the spring I purchased a compressor from Ebay for $200. It worked well except for having to very slightly grind the hole in the spring perch to get the top of the compressor to drop through. Also, the compressor plates were a little tricky to get back out of the spring. Not too bad, just need to use a pry bar to help open the coils while you keep trying. To get the old LCA bushings out of the arms I used a drill bit to destroy the old aluminum sleeve and then channel locks to twist out the first bushing. The other bushing can be driven out with a punch. To install the new bushings I used soap as a lube and my Harbor Freight ball joint "C" press. It worked very well. I'm considering putting the spring compressor on the tool rental program. Is anyone interested considering the issues I mentioned with the grinding and the plates?

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1983 300D 280,000
1983 300TD 125,000 Killed by oak tree.
1983 240D Sold
1986 Ford F250 Diesel 6.9l 169,000

In the near future I will be changing the lower control arm bushings and today I was looking in the manual and it showed flaring the new aluminum tube (the one that you drilled out). What did you use to flare the tube ends?

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

The new tube comes flared on one end. After pressing in the first bushing I found it easiest to get the other bushing aligned by setting it in place and then inserting the new aluminum tube. It will be long enough to fit into both bushings helping to keep everything aligned as you press in the second bushing. I used a punch to flare the end, tapping round the circumference.

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1983 300D 280,000
1983 300TD 125,000 Killed by oak tree.
1983 240D Sold
1986 Ford F250 Diesel 6.9l 169,000

Thanks for the info. I have the bushings here but stll packaged and only saw the unflared side and assumed both sides were unflared. A second look and I see one side is flared on mine also.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel