To say this is going smoothly would be the understatement of the year, or maybe decade. So we bought the bushing uninstall tool and removed the stock upper control arm bushings from our '90 Mustang rear. That went fairly smoothly. Bought 2 new stock bushings and melted the rubber center out of them and then cleaned up the metal sleeves for re-use with the Prothane Poly bushings. That also went smoothly - other than a 3rd degree burn when the melted rubber bushing hit me on the wrist on its way out.
Now is where it gets interesting. We pressed the new red, Prothane Poly bushing into the first cleaned up metal sleeve and then pressed it back into the rear. The upper control arm will NOT go over the bushing - it's a two part bushing with a bevelled donut shaped piece that goes over the end of the main bushing/metal sleeve on the end opposite the flange and ends up being flush with the end of the main bushing body. After a lot of head scratching, I took some measurements and found the following:
Uninstalled bushing length - 2.404";
Distance between the two arms of the upper control arm - 2.409"
Installed length of the bushing - 2.510"!
So pressing the bushing into the metal sleeve caused it to grow in length by over 0.100". Has anyone experienced this? If yes, what did you do? I'm inclined to pull the bushing and grind off the excess poly so that it will fit, but my partner doesn't like this approach. Any thoughts or solutions would be GREATLY appreciated!
Now is where it gets interesting. We pressed the new red, Prothane Poly bushing into the first cleaned up metal sleeve and then pressed it back into the rear. The upper control arm will NOT go over the bushing - it's a two part bushing with a bevelled donut shaped piece that goes over the end of the main bushing/metal sleeve on the end opposite the flange and ends up being flush with the end of the main bushing body. After a lot of head scratching, I took some measurements and found the following:
Uninstalled bushing length - 2.404";
Distance between the two arms of the upper control arm - 2.409"
Installed length of the bushing - 2.510"!
So pressing the bushing into the metal sleeve caused it to grow in length by over 0.100". Has anyone experienced this? If yes, what did you do? I'm inclined to pull the bushing and grind off the excess poly so that it will fit, but my partner doesn't like this approach. Any thoughts or solutions would be GREATLY appreciated!