Suspension: Bushes

[ian ferguson]

Hi, i replaced the rear toe bushes on my xc90 yesterday with the powerflex ones.I followed cchidzey instructions from his "how to do it tread". The job was made by not needing any special tools like some sort of press. i have noticed that powerflex do bushes for the track control arms. has anyone tried these and do you need special tools. Ian. Oh and thanks cchidzey

[JohnL]

Ian, In reply to your question yesterday on the bushes from Volvo yes you do need a press, perhaps you may have friendly garage that may fit them, I have luckily a friend with a press,
John

[ltec]

I think poly bushes are too hard. The wishbone is meant to flex.
Lemforder should last about 3 years. Genuine probably about 10. The Genuine works out very expensive for me anyway. Frf Swansea said I'd never get the bushes pressed out and with having to post my wishbones it was working out crazy money. Its a bit of a joke telling me that I wouldn't be able to get them out but they wanted the wishbone in exchange, so they would take them out and reuse it.
If I couldn't press them out then I'd cut them out but I've never been beat with the press yet.
If you haven't a press it shouldn't cost much to pay a garage just to press them out and in.
If your just changing the bushes then I would buy genuine as they are competitive with the price of them.

[Tannaton]

You can press them out - another member made a simple jig to do it of a G clamp and other stuff.

But you can cut the old ones out, and press the new ones in with a large vice and a selection of big sockets.

[Familyman 90]

Originally Posted by ltec

I think poly bushes are too hard.

Only the hard ones!

You buy the hardness to suit your tastes/needs. You don't have to buy track compound jobs.

[ltec]

Originally Posted by Familyman 90

Only the hard ones!

You buy the hardness to suit your tastes/needs. You don't have to buy track compound jobs.

Ride Quality: Because rubber is softer than polyurethane, it’s much better at warding off road noise and vibrations. This means that rubber bushings make for a much smoother ride. This is one of the main reasons—aside from cost–that OEMs use rubber ones on the assembly line.

[ian ferguson]

Hi, Spoke to Powerflex today, and they say with their track control bushes you use the silicone grease they supply and press them in, and then push the centre fixing spindle in. the arm can move up and without stressing the bush. the blue ones are for road use and the black ones are for track use. I will go for the blue ones. if it's possible to cut the old ones out i will probably give it a go, i have a bottle jack so i'll find a way to make jig

[wynnj]

Originally Posted by ian ferguson

Hi, Spoke to Powerflex today, and they say with their track control bushes you use the silicone grease they supply and press them in, and then push the centre fixing spindle in. the arm can move up and without stressing the bush. the blue ones are for road use and the black ones are for track use. I will go for the blue ones. if it's possible to cut the old ones out i will probably give it a go, i have a bottle jack so i'll find a way to make jig

I replaced the wishbone bushes on my XC90 with powerflex a few weeks ago.
To remove the old ones I drilled a series of holes into the existing rubber starting at about 5mm and ending up at 10 or 12mm and then cut the bits that are left with a coarse blade sabre saw. I then cut through the outer collar with a hacksaw, cutting towards the leg where the metal is thickest, incase I cut a liitle too deep. A cold chisel and hammer will then get the collar out easily.
To install the new polyeuethane bushes I followed the Powerflex instructions using a vice and they went in quite easily. I have got a press but the shape of the arms makes it difficult to get them in a good position to press the old out or new in. It helps with pushing in the new pins though.

I also ordered purple ones but it seems that they only supply the rears in black now. I can only assume that this is because it's the rears that are most susceptible to failure on the XC90 as against the fronts on the S60s/v70s.

Found no negatives to having fitted polyurethanes, on the contrary, the car feels better even though the ones I replaced weren't particularly worn. I only replaced them because I needed to fit two new tyres and get the alignment done; I didn't want to pay £100+ again in the near future to get the alignment done after fitting new bushes.

There are lots of videos on removing the P2 control arms but something I did on the XC90 which I hadn't tried before on the S60 nor v70 was to compress the spring as much as possible before removing the control arms. I found this helped enormously when refitting everything as I didn't have to force the control down as far to get the lower ball joint in.

The main problem I had was incompetency on the part of the garage that had replaced them previously. They'd got thread sealer into the lower ball joint taper which meant I had to take the whole hub and lower control arm off as one to separate them using heavy blows with a club hammer with a protective sacrificial nut on the end of the ball joint. I've never had this problem before and I've dismantled and rebuilt the suspension legs on S60s and a V70 many times.

[ian ferguson]

Thanks wynnj for taking the time to give a detailed description of the job. The 1st time i replaced the track control arms was on my first V70 and a year later i had to do them again, since then i've always used OEM, but whilst waiting for FRF in Swansea and a local Volvo parts store to get back to me I thought I'd look into poly bushes and other quality control arms. But i think i'll go with the poly bushes. I intend to keep the car and i think these will last a long time, also I live in London and there are road humps all over the place. Ian

[ian ferguson]

I fitted the powerflex bushes , it was easier than thought it would be. i used about 8" of threaded studding and nuts and washers, i did it on a work bench similar to a black and decker with holes in the surface, i put a large socket to keep the pressure away from the hole then a washer and a nut, from the under side i fed the studding through the hole, on the topside i put the wishbone, then the bush with washing up liquid round the leading edge, then one of the large washers supplied with the bushes, i put an another washer on top of it as you need those when fitting the vertical bushes, then the nut. the instructions explain the best way to position the bushes before tightening the nut.once the leading edges are in the wishbone hole you can remove the studding and tap with a hammer and they pop into position. I followed WYNNJ's instructions to remove the old bushes