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Well, well, things have progressed. Actually I'm kind of witing this posthumously, so to speak, as the work described herein was done about three weeks ago. Nothing like stayin' on top of things, huh.
Having successfully removed all the bushing-holding suspension components (except for the rear axle housing, of course..!), it was time to go get the old bushings pressed out and the new pressed in. But prior to doing that, I spent quite a bit of time sanding and bead blasting... this is a great time to get rid of rust! I painted everything (trailing arms, torque rods, panhard rod, sway bars, control arms, control arm rear brackets) with Rustoleum Heavy Metal Primer and then Rustoleum Semi-gloss Black. In all honesty, some POR-15 products probably would have been better. But all these parts are in way better shape now that when I started (ok, a bit of rationalization, I admit).
The first thing I did was to get the Volvo bushing tool from Duane Hoberg. I don't have a big impact gun, so I rented an electric impact gun. It was the best-spent $8 on the whole project. I wouldn't say that replacing those big bushings was easy, but it wasn't too tricky. As I said, the impact gun was a life-saver. Oh, I also kept the bushings in the freezer for a couple days prior to starting. Was this a necessary step? I don't know, but it didn't cost anything and it didn't hurt, either. Kind of like soldering relays...
I debated briefly with myself about buying a press. However I was getting a slight amount of pressure from the wife.finance.gov, so I decided not to "press" the issue. So I contacted a local Volvo shop, and asked what they'd charge to do the removal/installation. Answer: About 1 to 1 1/2 hours at $70/hour... so $70 - $100 (USD). Well, that's not too unreasonable, I thought. Then my dad says to me (remember, he's the guy who has loaned me his 1982 Mercedes 300TD turbo-diesel wagon all this time), why don't I take this stuff to the friendly machine shop? You know, the one we've done business with for 20? 30? years? Yes, Dad, I know the place... Now I'm thinking, somehow I'm doing the ol' man a favor.
Anyway... I dropped off all the painted parts and new bushings. Ray, the machine shop proprietor, says No problem, come back tomorrow around noon, and by the way, I'll probably mess up your nice paint job a little. Well, that's ok, I thought, I would expect a little paint to be chipped off here and there. I can touch that up.
Weellll.... I HATE it when I have to learn "life's little lessons". Ray didn't PRESS the old bushings out, he BURNED them out! Ok, granted, that's not really all that big of a deal... I did have to practically start all over again on the sanding process, but ok. And I did carefully mask all the bushings (I don't know that Rustoleum will hurt the rubber, but I don't know that it won't, either). At least it's all done.
Now to re-installed the trailing arms. The big front bolt went in first. Next would be the big rear bolt, but keep in mind that the spring has to be installed simultaneously. I found it very helpful to use a wee bit of masking tape, to tape the bottom spring retaining thingy to the spring. Cram the spring up onto its upper seat, raise the trailing arm so that the stud on the bottom spring retaining thingy goes through the hole (in the trailing arm), start the nut on that stud, and raise the trailing arm so that the big rear bolt can be started. Easy, eh? Actually, once I determined it would be helpful to use the tape, the process really wasn't too bad.
Then I got the floor jack, put a piece of wood on it, and CAREFULLY raised the trailing arm a bit, so that I could get the lower shock bolt in. Note that the key word here is CAREFULLY... the spring is being compressed during this step. It's not a real big deal; it's not being compressed anywhere near as much as it is when the car is sitting on its wheels; however better safe than sorry, right? Any time a spring is being taken from one static condition to another, caution should be exercised. That, and remember to brush after every meal.
So one side is done (sort of - all nuts are installed finger-tight only at this point). As per typical, the other side went together in half the time. This is a piece of pie. But wait! Did the careful reader notice the flaw? I did all this without installing the rear sway bar! Oh crap, I hope that's not a big mistake... :(
Well, it didn't turn out to be a real big mistake, just a PITA. Both the lower shock bolt and the trailing arm big rear bolts had to come back out... clearly, I did them one at a time. In fact the process was this: (1) Fish the sway bar up into approximate position. (2) Pull the lower shock bolt on one side, put the sway bar in place, put the bolt back in. (3) Repeat step #2 for the other side. (4) Pull the trailing arm rear bolt, position the funny little bracket properly, and reinstall the trailing arm bolt. (5) Repeat step #4 for the other side.
So now the situation is this: The front hole on each side of the sway bar is attached (via the shock lower bolt). But there's no stinkin' way to get the sway bar rear holes over the rear mounting bolts. For those who haven't yet had the priviledge of doing this job, the rear mounting bolts are held in place by the "funny little bracket" referenced in step #4 above. The saving grace is that this bracket has a slot that goes down (open to the bottom of the bracket). I was able to use my floor jack to raise the entire rear suspension high enough to allow the mounting bolts to be inserted into the rear holes in the sway bar (one on each side), then pivot the sway bar up so that the mounting bolts slid into the slots on the bottom of the "funny little brackets". Does this make sense? If not, contact me and I'll try to explain in clearer terms.
The morale of the story: Make sure you've including the sway bar earlier than I did. I believe the correct sequence would be: (1) Front trailing arm bolt - both sides. (2) Fish the sway bar into approximate position. (3) Rear trailing arm bolt, with "funny little brackets" - both sides. (4) Slip the sway bar rear mounting bolts into the rear sway bar holes. Position the rear mounting bolts into the "funny little brackets". (5) Lower shock bolt, which also feeds through the front sway bar hole. This would probably require the use of a floor jack on the trailing arm (spring compression, remember?).
Finally the panhard rod is installed. It was simple - no tricks.
Well, this went a little longer than I expected, so I'll discuss the reassembly of the front next time.
Later Dudes & Dudettes.
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