How I ended up fitting the bushings to my W123 300D LCA
 

Dear All,

I'm not sure if this is method has already been "discovered" but I thought I'd show what I did any way...

I've been following the Peach Parts Wiki front end rebuild

http://www.peachparts.com/Wikka/W123FrontSuspension

But got a little bit stuck getting the new bushings into the Lower Control Arm (LCA). Pushing them into place with KY Jelly was fine but they ended up wriggling out so there was always a gap...

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...pictureid=2300

You can see the gap here on the bushing that has got a bit of masking tape on the end (more about that later)

I was inspired by the Whisky Dan Method (WDM) of installing and removing trailing arm bushings (http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/266324-w123-1984-300td-wagon-rear-trailing-arm-bushings-r-r.html) and so I came up with this:- A wooden vice with a hole in one end so you can finish off the aluminium tube that holds the two bushings in place.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...pictureid=2301

Please ignore the angle grinder wire brush attachment - it just happens to have a 12mm bolt on it and I couldn't find another at the time... I will go to virtually any length not to have to go back to the shop again to get yet another bit...

I like wood for these sorts of solutions - the chances of over tightening or squashing stuff is small - and when you are done you can just throw it away and not clutter up your tool kit with yet more special tools (that you probably won't use again).

To make the vice you need:-

Two bits of chunky cheap wood
Two lengths of threaded bar (that can also be used for other things such as fitting trailing arm bushes using the WDM)
Four washers
Four nuts (you don't need the angle grinder wire brush attachment!)

Drill two holes towards the ends of your chunky cheap wood for the threaded bar (see photograph)

Drill one hole in the middle of once piece of your chunky wood that is wide enough to pass a W123 wheel bolt through (about 23-24mm)

Next step
 

Before you assemble the wooden vice around your LCA and the bushings place the aluminium tube in position and place a washer over the end of the pre-formed flared end of the aluminium tube - hold this in place with tape - see first photograph. This will stop the aluminium tube from moving about and help to stop it from being pushed into the wooden jaw of your home made vice.

Place the LCA in your wooden vice - putting the end with of the unformed aluminium tube over the hole you made in the middle of your wooden vice jaw

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...pictureid=2302

It should look a bit like this

Time to form your aluminium tube
 

Get a W123 wheel bolt (You should have 20 of those!) and wrap some tape around the threads so you don't inadvertently score the inside of the aluminium tube whilst you are forming a new flared end.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...pictureid=2303

Drop the bolt down the hole in your wooden vice - balance it on the corner of a work bench (or anything else that seems handy) - use a pin punch to help you whack it into place.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...pictureid=2304

Please note the weedy little pin punch I used - you really don't need loads of weight here it is an ALUMINIUM tube not a steel one.

Job done
 

And here is the finished job

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...pictureid=2305

I think it looks quite good - what do you think?

Nice job,always nice to see some ingenuity Don

Wow, I figured I'd just look at the pictures and ignore the text for a while, but I absolutely could not figure out what that wire brush attachment was for....nothing!

Looks like a clever way of holding the bushings in place while leaving room to flare that metal tube.

What awesome timing. I'm rebuilding my front end here really soon. Thanks for the tricks.

Yes sorry about the wire bush attachment...
 

Yep sorry about the wire brush attachment in the photographs - like I said I really did not want to have to go back to the shop again for a M12 nut... I hope it doesn't cause too much confusion - at least it makes you look twice!

Good luck
 

Well I wish you the best of luck - getting the old bushings out of the LCA was a bit of a nightmare for me. You can see that I ended up sawing the an end off in this thread:-

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/275916-w123-300d-lca-failure-likely.html

I then used the WDM (Whiskey Dan Method) to pull the old bushings out.

I'll try and dig out a photo of this for you later on today - I've gotta fly now and torque my LCA to the ball joints (60 lbs-ft)!

Sorry I can't find THAT photo
 

Sorry I can't find the photograph of the LCA bushing removal (I've only got pictures of the carnage afterwards...) but here is one of the rear suspension trailing arms:-

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...pictureid=2306

It is the same principle and further proof that the WDM works!

For the LCA I cut down the side of the of the bushing with a hacksaw - prying with a screw driver didn't work for me. The aluminium tube was stubborn enough to prevent that. I suppose you could try drilling the aluminium tube away but you'd need a 24 mm drill (I'd have tried this is if I'd got one). Here is a picture of the LCA post hacksaw attack:-

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...pictureid=2251

Oh sorry I forgot to say - the alternative to trying to draw the old bushings out is to just knock the heck out of the aluminium tube with a large hammer and punch. You'll get there in the end! I did one LCA that way and the other as described above...

I did four of these about a month ago and had no problem "folding in" the aluminum tube using a screwdriver and hammer then just pounding it out of the bushing. Perhaps I just got lucky.

thats pretty clever... nice work

I planned on using this today. A free(er) solution to this is using the BJ press rental from autozoo. It is open on one end and has plenty of space to allow you to flare the tube.

Congrats, Army! I always learn something from your posts - nice to see ingenuity in action. You remind me of a famous engineer who works at National Semiconductor, Bob Pease; one of his famous sayings is "Show me where it says I can't do that."

Kurt