Luke -

As an alternative to creating your own tool, there's a guy called Duane Hoberg (a regular if infrequent contributor to the BB) who has the factory tool... he rents it out for $35 + shipping. He's worked with a local machine shop and made a couple subtle modifications to it that make it very efficient to use... I used it just a couple weeks ago with very good results.

If you plan accordingly, you could rent the thing and do both cars at the same time (well, ok, not at EXACTLY the same time).

If your goal is some sort of self-edification through making your own tool, then that's great, go for it! I wish you complete success. However if your goal is to merely get the bushings replaced in your cars, you may want to consider contacting Duane.

BTW, he usually goes by the moniker, "The OD Guru".

Just a thought.

Homemade plans did circulate somewhere a couple of years ago when brickboard hadn't been born yet and its predecessor "vcoa-list" was still alive. I have no idea if I still have them saved somewhere.

I usually use appropriately sized sockets. I got them from an army surplus sale (you'ld be surprised what size sockets are used for maintaining tanks), but any decent quality sockets will do. If you buy (yardsale?) Craftsman or similar you could even take them back if between the press, the bushing and the socket the socket turned out to be the weekest part.

6 ton will _probably_ get the torque rod bushings out, but depending on how rotten they are might not be enough for the trailing arm bushings. I've heard of cases where a 12 ton press wasn't sufficient and people had to find someone with a 20 or 30 tonne press. If the price difference isn't too great, I'ld say go for at least the 12 tonne press.

Bram