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Last month I bought a 1990 240 DL sedan with 241K on it. The car was in excellent shape, but needed rear trailing arm bushings. I decided to tackle the job myself and also do the 8 other rear bushings. All Poly replacements, which I bought from IPD. This job is known to be difficult and it lived up to its reputation for me.
I ended up buying a rear trailing arm bushing tool to do the job. Even with the tool it took a very long time to work out the old bushings. I whacked at a 15" wrench attached to the tool with a hammer. Eventually the bushing worked its way out, but I was surprised that the tool held up through it all. Putting the new sleeve in was far easier than getting the old one out. I've read posts where people used an air chisel or sawzall to remove the old bushings and I can see now how that might be a more sane way to go. I just went slow and steady taking care not to bungle anything up.
My advice to anyone using the rear trailing arm bushing tool is to take some time to make sure you understand exactly how everything will work. The tool comes with various attachments and the configuration is different depending on whether you are removing or installing the bushing. When removing the old bushing you can see if you are making any progress by looking at the bushings sleeve next to the ear. Once you see a line appear that's an indication of progress and as you work the old bushing out the line will expand. I actually removed the tool once or twice to make sure everything was lined up right, because it was going so slowly and progress felt like watching the grass grow. By the time I got the thing out I could barely life my hammer.
The rest of the bushings were easier, but still a painful experience - front trailing arm bushing, torque arm bushings x 2, and panhard rod bushings. Eight more in total. At least for these you can remove the part from the car to work on it. I have a cheap Harbor Freight press and bought all sorts of pipe fittings in the sizes recommended by IPD. For the life of me I could not get a single bushing to press out. I don't know if I wasn't lining things up right or if the pipes weren't quite the right size or if the old bushings were just so fused in there.
I ended up using the burn, cut, and remove technique. After 8 bushings I became quite proficient at this. The burn stage involved using a MAP gas torch to heat up the old bushing. In just a couple minutes the center sleeve just fell out. I kept burning a while longer to melt more rubber away to make it easier to reach the outer shell with a saw. Anyone doing this should make sure they wear eye protection. The rubber can splash and you don't want that hitting your eye. It's also handy to have a bucket of water near by to receive the center sleeve and cool off the part when you are done. Whatever you do don't pick up the center sleeve if it falls on the ground. It will remain hot enough to burn you for a very long time. Go slow and be safe. (And no, thankfully I didn't burn myself, but it was clear that it could be a hazard.)
The next step involved cutting the outer shell of the bushing. I used a hack saw for this. I installed the blade through the bushing so I could saw on that outer shell. The trick is to cut evenly and deeply enough to cut through the shell, but not so deep as to damage the car part. It should only take a few minutes to do the necessary sawing.
The last step is to remove the old bushing. The technique I used for this was to enlist my trusty screwdriver as a chisel (use eye protection). I started off by hitting downward on the edge of the bushing shell near the cut toward the center of bushing. This will lift the shell away from the car part. With that opening you can then insert the screwdriver to drive it between the shell and the car part. I did this from both sides. Once the screwdriver drives all the way through and is then removed, you should be able to just tap out the old bushing shell. You may find that you need to stop and cut more material before the screwdriver will go all the way through. It might be an iterative process depending on how gung ho you got with the cutting.
Installing the new bushings in the torque arms, panhard rode, and front trailing arms was super easy. I can't be happier with being able to use poly for this part of the process. They just squeeze in with a vice. I did end up chewing off a small piece from the edge of one of the front trailing arm bushings as I tried to force it through with the vice, but this does not seem to affect the function as it is just on the edge (hopefully). Using a little bit of the supplied grease on the poly bushing can help ease this process, but the one I had was particularly tight.
All this made for an exciting job over the weekend. I just thought I'd share how I did this, since this is now a very common repair on these cars. I probably didn't do this the best way, but got it done just the same.
-Ted
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