Hi all,

I have to replace worn link bushing on rear trailing arm on my 94 850 sedan (185,000 miles). Anyone have any experience with removing old link from arm?

Thanks

Well I'm into this one for over an hour and the prognosis is not good. The parts came apart easily enough up to the point where you try to actually extricate the old link bushing from the delta link (suspension arm). This is where it gets interesting. I tried to hammer the old bushing out to no avail, called my trusted local Volvo service manager who put me on the phone with one of the few mechanics that had ever actually done one of these. He laughed, said it takes them 2 guys and 2.5 hours per side to get these things out using heat, air hammer, and all the grunt they can muster. He said to make sure I did not have any guns laying around the house as I would surely put a bullet in my head before finshing this one by myself!

So, I am going back at it for one last shot using heat, but was hoping to find another posting to this thread to give me some better news!

Claude
1994 855M
325k miles

I am in the middle of the same thing as we speak on my '94 855M (325k miles)

I came in to take a break and was hoping to stumble onto some good info as so far it is looking like a royal P.I.T.A

I am trying to do it without removing the whole rear suspension.

I'll check back if I have anything meaningful to report.

Good luck,
Claude in Maine

Looks like I'm in for a good time!!

My part is in at the dealer but I won't get to it for a few days.
Thanks for the response, I plan to try heat and wailing on it with a LARGE hammer & will advise if I have any luck or find an alternate route.

Thanks

Joe

Sorry to post this so late after my last one, but I was away for a while and just now got around to giving it a good try.

I heated the support arm around the link bushing, and also directed the flame right into the rubber material for a while. Nasty stuff and you definitely want a fire extinguisher around and good ventilation. This seemed to more or less disconnect the metal link from the rubber and I was able to get the bushing to start out by hammering on the metal link.

Once I caught an edge of the old bushing with a sharp screw driver, I was able to work it out without too much difficulty. Probably 30 minutes of messing around with it. The installation of the new bushing went OK. I dremelled the inside of the arm with a little cylindrical sanding attachment to smoothen everything out, then I coated the new bushing with dishwashing soap and it went in without too much trouble. I took care to use a wood drift and tapped against the rubber part rather than wailing on the metal link rod, for fear of detaching the metal from the rubber.

All in all, not a really bad job..maybe 2 hrs for a side, tops. Of course, the Volvo tech I spoke with may have had an entirely different experience, but mine was OK.

By the way, I did this with a basic floor jack in my driveway. The hardest part was figuring out where to jack the car as the normal point (link bushing cover, needed to be taken apart! So I used the one n the middle of the rocker panel, then I put some big blocks under the floor pan with lots of 2x6 to spread out the load (shadetree mechanic all the way!) but it worked fine.

Good luck.

Claude

Thanks for the update Claude, it is a great help.

I am in the middle of this now, I have everything disassembled but am stuck on one bolt. I have the nut off the bolt which pins the link into the arm tube but cannot budge the bolt itself. Is there any trick to getting thisd out. I have put a floor jack under it and put the weight of the car on it & still no luck.

Thanks

Joe