Struggling to complete insertion of Elephant Racing new rubber rear bushings with their supplied tools and liquid soap solution per their instructions. The final step is to press the pivot shaft into position, but after getting it in about 2 to 3 inches, it begins pulling the bushing into the strut hole Any tips will be very welcome.

Would access to a press help Keith?

I could meet you at the workshop.

Thanks for offer Tom, but I have not removed the trailing arms from the car which are comfortably dangling down with good access to work on with the car up high on good jack stands. I have a new bar clamp which I will be using this morning. I will try a couple of ideas today; add some water to the liquid soap which seems to dry quickly to a somewhat sticky consistency (?), and I may even see if I can find some plastic pipe that is loose fitting on the pivot shaft and slides onto it and into the trailing arm with a length that matches the distance between the bushings and may help prevent them being pushed into the arm (!).

I wonder if glycerine would work better than the soap. Seems to remain slippery longer.

Thanks for your suggestion. I will try this after if the other ideas don't work.

I don't use soap. . try "Smoothie". . it's a silicon additive for paint.

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Thanks for all your comments. The E R instructions are to insert the bushings into the trailing arm by hand aided by soap - easy to do. Then insert the pilot tool (3 inch long bar same diameter as pivot shaft with coaxial hole with tapered entry) into one of the inserted bushings to receive the incoming pivot shaft threaded end to guide the shaft into the bushing that is being pushed in from the opposite end. Inserting the pilot tool aided with soap, requires a bar clamp. This was straight forward.

Final step is to press the pivot shaft with soap solution help, through the bushing opposite to the inserted pilot tool bushing and towards it, in my case, with my new bar clamp. All good until the bar is in about 2 inches, when it begins to draw one side of the bushing into the trailing arm hole. The problem appears to be: the action of the squeezed tight fitting rubber bushing around the pivot shaft scrapes the liquid soap lubricant off the shaft as it slides in, and then the friction draws the rubber bushing into the trailing arm pivot hole.

I am looking for some glycerine as my next step.

Any pharmacy should have glycerine. Good luck!

If you can get through this thread, or jump to the end, there may be useful lessons learned that apply to you. I had a hard enough time doing this with trailing arms off and using a press. Doing this with arms on car seems to increase the difficulty factor.

Anyway, FWIW: http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...276229&st=0

Good luck.

Got the job done with a few minor changes in process. First I washed out all of the soap solution on the bushings, spindles and the trailing arm tubes. I used spit (!) to lubricate the bushings to hand press them into the ends of the trailing arm tubes - soap is too slippery and does not resist the pressing in of the spindles dragging the bushings into the tubes. Then I used glycerine instead of soap, which is too easily removed by the spindles as they are pressed in, causing too much friction - again dragging the bushes too far into the trailing arm tubes. In summary, I stopped using soap, used spit for just enough lubrication on the outside of the bushings, and glycerine on the inside of the bushings which better resists being wiped off the spindles than soap does - thus more lubrication. I also applied the glycerine in approximately 2” increments on the spindles to keep it fresh before entering the bushings. Finally, I took more time to gradually give the rubber bushings more time to slide over the spindles as I pressed them in.

Thanks for the update and procedure Keith.

Glad you accomplished the mission. Great info but SO many dirty jokes in there that I'm have trouble behaving.

I was aware of it, but the very mission was hard to describe differently.