Hi,

I just did one front bushing on the left side of my 1993 a few weeks ago.
The other side had already been replace by the previous owner at some unknown time earlier.
The right side receives a lot more abuse than the left side on any car in most countries!
The Edges of roads have lots and lots of goodies to run over or into.

All you have to do is unbolt the bushing box from the frame and let the whole lower arm hang at a slight angle, to clear the frame, by just pulling the front bolt out that holds the front bushing.
The whole arm slips down about a half inch inside the cars frame. The strut holds it all up.

I got into doing mine this way because you cannot properly tighten the bushing back onto the lower arm if that box is up against frame. The wrenches I have won’t fit and swing in that narrow opening and it’s worse on the right side with the exhaust.

I used Art Benstein’s method of cocking the whole assembly and running the nut tight before raising the lower arm up to the frame.
It saves you from doing in while the wheel is on the ground or supporting the weight of the car!
It’s a guesstimate on how much I it twists when the wheel is hanging and putting it there beforehand, so, when it’s on the ground it’s more or less in a neutralize stressed position.

I don’t quite understand them designing it while putting the rubber in a stress anyway?
It is in there and was meant to be a support and be a noise isolation member only!
I see if it’s not tight, it then became a “goof” on their part when it made clunky sounds.
So consequently, the engineers came up with a compromise procedure for the dealer shop manuals!

I’ll bet the assembly lines didn’t put the car down on the ground. I think the pushed the whole McPherson assembly up in one shot with a preassembled unit set on a holding fixture.
It then got grabbed by a rolling battery powered jack!
Before that, They used to use two large armed Swedes to line things up! (:-)

I used an air impact and backed the nut off the stud of the lower arm. You can do this with out one if you use an extension and 3/4” socket before you yank the front bolt on the front bushing.

Once you get that nut off the stud, the whole box will slide off the lower arm.
You can pound it out with a big hammer and a support underneath the case that holds the bushing.
You would be “ pressed” (pun) to find a great big bench vise!
It is a nice press out though, as it took almost Four Tons of pressure to get it to budge on my press. After that, the pressure dropped to way less than half to slip it on out. Going back with a new one is quite easy.

Anyone with a hydraulic press or a bottle jack can do this.
You just have too get “creative” on supporting the box and using something of the right diameters rams to push on the bushing.
I have used a bottle jack, on top of a four by four wood timber, up underneath my garage door opening or a regular door opening period to build a press.
I used them to bend things or remove bearings in my younger, MUCH poorer days! It’s fairly hard to lift the header boards built in over these openings. You know they are there to support walls and roofs.
I guess if your house is not a a slab you could get under there, as well!

If you don’t have any of this you can always go with threaded rod and makeshift some spacers?
This is the whole thing with all these methods is gathering up the pushing blocks in the beginning.
Once it’s out, the reverse of putting in the new one is already figured out!
I see why some people charge do push things out, as it’s not as easy as blowing your nose! (:-)
Especially without ruining bearings!
I think you are in for a real treat, if you think, you are going to change out the whole lower control arm without doing something with that support box as it is not part of a new arm.

Beside, the prices you are getting on standard rubber bushings all the way around, are way, way out of line!
Shop with better details if on line.

Phil