I have a 760 wagon with the common clunk-from-rear-when-braking. The symptom has been there since I bought the car. The big-end trailing arm bushing are flatted on two sides and I will be replacing them.

My common sense (OK, maybe it's the BSME) tells me that the large dimension should be in line with the lateral forces. Simply put, almost horizontal when installed. My car has them 1/4 turn from this position and I believe that this is wrong. In fact, I think this is the real reason for my clunk, since I once pulled both torque arms out and none of the 4 bushings seem to be worn.

Which direction is correct for the non-round big-end bushings in the torque arms? Are there any tricks to pushing the old ones out or the new ones in?

If your Volvo is any half-decent shape, it would be worth it to use the all round 2-piece poly bushings. My '88 740 looks like a pile of rust from below, so just intend to use the funny looking original rubber style. The Volvo 700 1991-92 parts manual which can be downloaded as a pdf from volvotips.com has an "exploded" view of all the axle attachments on page 657, and shows the bushings with flat sides vertical, which seems to go against the "intuitive" engineering conception, however, would assume it was checked by the Volvo tech service. BTW this view is reproduced in other sites, but the pdf can be zoomed in at fairly good resolution and clarity. Presume your BSME is Bachelor of Science Mechanical...- I have a partial, and spent my working life on machinery designs.

C'mon... there has to be SOMEBODY here that knows which direction these bushings should be positioned.

I don't know how the other reply "bilstein bump stop" came up here.

Anyway, I don't remember which way they should go. Pressing them in is a challenge though. Using a press is the best, maybe go to a machine shop. They tend to tilt sideways, so maybe the shop would have a way to align them.