Idler arm nightmare.

[ubtripn]

I have done many of these but this one almost drove me insane. I start work outside of the shop on a sunny day for the natural light. Turn my right wheel all the way over and just decide to do it without removing the tire since there was enough room. Crown nuts and cotter pins come off fine. I seperate the bottom with a pickle fork with the first tap. The top however was a far different story. It will not budge. Nothing will get it off so now it is raining and starting to get muddy but I am stubborn and keep going. One thousand whacks on the pickle fork later I finally decide to unbolt the bracket from the frame and take it inside the shop to seperate. The bracket with the idler arm comes right off, now it's snowing out! I put it in a vice and keep working at it, tried a million ways and angles and finally just pulled out my angle grinder, cut away the rubber washer (what was left) and tried to cut it off as cleanly as I could. One disc later the old idler arm falls to the floor, the bracket still has part of the bolt left in it. I pop it out and now it's time for the new one to go one. I install the zerks, reach for the grease gun, out of grease. Down to Autozone, get more, come home, will not fit in gun for some reason. (Ended up going back for new grease gun.) Come home again through the mud and snow and I am looking at the bracket and it is pretty gouged from the cutting, I grind it flatter, throw on the washers and install the new one which took 90 percent of the play out of my steering. Here is the question - The metal on the idler arm that touches the rubber washers doesn't move right? (I didn't harm the idler arm, just hurt the bracket a little but smoothed it out as much as possible.)

I want to make sure that the rubber washer is not moving against the metal on the bracket which I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

This job was the perfect example of something easy going horribly wrong and sometimes something that is giong to be very hard going very soothly. Thanks for the help!