Pressing in A Arm bushings?

[Jebb1978]

Hello Fellas,

I was at my friend's house today (he has a press) pressing in my new PST polygraphite bushings for my 59 GMC. As we were pressing in the bushings the A arms kept bending in instead of seating the bushing properly? There had to be collectively (with my Dad my Friend's Dad, My Friend and Myself) a ton of experience working on cars and nobody had ever seen this happen before. We ended up puting various sockets and metal peices in to keep it from happening but some damage was already done. I am pretty sure that everything will work out okay. I tried cleaning out the excess paint but that didn't make any difference. They are Camaro A arms if that makes any difference ( I am running a Camaro subframe). Have you heard of this? Was I doing something wrong?

[gringoloco]

Sounds to me like you had the entire a-arm in the press. If you can, do them one side at a time.

Also, try heating the metal/cooling the bushing. This works better with rubber than poly.

-Chris

[Jebb1978]

Actually we did them with the whole thing in the press and one side at a time it was bending them both ways???

[BrianJordan]

it is allways a good idea to use a little heat on the a arm and frieze the bushing, to press them in.

[azfabguy]

you should of put a block of wood or something like it in between the mounting points to keep it from flexing.

[dirtball]

I went through the same thing while pressing in Global West Del-A-Lum bushings into the arms on my Camaro. We froze the bushings, heated the arm and it still wanted to collapse. Global West warned about this in the instructions and included a steel spacer to prevent this. I had to grind it to size for each of the 4 bushings. I think it is a common problem. At least on Camaro arms.

[dwcsr]

You should always use a half moon shaped spacer between the bushing ears.
Cutting a section of pipe to the correct width and about 1/2 inch larger than the diameter of the bushing, cut out about a third of it so it will slip past the bushing. this will prevent bending.

[72CSTC5]

dwcsr, do you have a picture of what you are talking about?

[dwcsr]

I don't but I could make a piece and take a pic to give you an idea if what it should look like. It won't be to the correct dimension because i don't have a spare a frame.

[dwcsr]

I had a piece of card board tube handy so here is the spacer in cardboard

You measue to the correct height and diameter (larger by half) so if its a 1.5" diameter bushing you need a 2.25" pipe or close.

Slice out a quarter to 1/3. closer to a 1/4 and spread it so it just easily forces past the bushing. You need to be able to remove it once the bushing is pressed in, so not to tight on the openning.

You slip it in and properly brace the botton of the arm ear and press away. You may have to pry it out but it will come out.