This weekend I replaced the front and rear bushings on the front control arms. I don't have a press and two shops quoted me $135 - 150 to replace the bushing (I supply the parts), so needless to say I did it myself without a press and here's how. The rear bushings were easy to hammer out, but the front ones required that I drill out the rubber and then hacksaw a slot lengthwise down the outer sleeve to remove it. To install, I heated the rear bushing holder in the oven @ 300F for 15 minutes while the bushing sat in the freezer. I made up a bushing driver out of a piece of pine that I cut out a moon shaped section on the end so only the outer sleeve of the bushing was contacted. The rear bushings went right in. I then heated the control arm and used a large socket as a bushing driver for the front bushing. Worked great and no damage to the bushings.

Question: Bentley states that the rear bushings for the drivers and passenger sides are different and shows one having a series of holes drilled through the rubber all around it. The other bushing as a couple of moon shaped slots in the rubber. However, neither the existing bushing looked like these, nor did the Beck-Arnley replacements (which had the same part number for both sides). Considering the abuse these bushing take and their failure rate, even if these holed/slotted bushing were available I don't think I'd use them. Can anyone explain?

Also a question on installing the control arms: Bentley states to leave the bolts that go through the front and rear bushings loose until the weight is on the suspension before tightening. I think this is done because the bushings are designed not to rotate, but to have the inner sleeve pinched, holding it motionless, while the rubber flexes as needed to allow the control arm to move. If the bushing bolts were tightned before weight was placed on the suspension, the rubber would be placed in a continual flex mode when the car was lowered, causing the bushings to fail early. Not a problem for the front bushing as there's plenty of room to get to the bolts, but not so for the rear bushings. First of all, the exhaust pipes and transmission lines make it impossible to get to the right rear bushing nut after it's on the car. Even on the left side, there's no way to get a socket on the nut let alone a torque wrench. I decided to approximate the angle the control arms would be when the weight was on the car and tighten the rear bushing to the torque value before installing it on the car. Anyone run into this problem?