6/11/2010 - Fitting the leading arms

So the rebuild work continues on the front axle.

You will recall that the leading arms were bent...the yellow object is a spirit level and the arm curves away nicely.

 

 

You will also recall that I got hold of a set of second generation Off-Road Armory arms to replace them with. These have the advantage of being orderable with various levels of castor correction. I went for the three inch corrected version.

These come with a tool to help you insert the bushes (front set of arms only are shown)

Therefore i needed some bushes to fit into the arms.

I ordered ADK ones from Camskill, the part numbers for the front are:

ADK 88008 - Axle end bushes (Four required)

ADK 88007 - Body end bushes (Two required)

If you are doing the back the the part numbers are:

ADK 88006 - Axle end bushes (Four required)

ADK 88007 - Body end bushes (Two required)

You could also buy the Suzuki ones if you are feeling rich, the part numbers for the front are:

46282-81A10  - Axle end bushes (Four required)

46213-65D01 - Body end bushes (Two required)

And the rear are:

46282-81A00  - Axle end bushes (Four required)

46213-65D01 - Body end bushes (Two required)

If you are going to the trouble of putting on new arms you really ought to put in new bushes as they do wear and they are difficult to press out of the old arms anyway.

So onwards to assembling the arms (I will produce a full printed guide later)

You will need to press in the bushes, I have played about with trying to "wind" the new ones in with a piece of threaded rod but this was not successful. It would probably work with Polybush style bushes (SuperPro) as these are not encased in a metal casing like Suzuki or ADK bushes. You should be able to find a local garage or engineering shop prepared to press them in for a small consideration. However, as I have worn a bit thin my welcome at my local garages with pressing in wheel bearings I decided to splash out on my own press. I am glad I did because of the time it took to press in the six bushes would have definitely seem me less than welcome at the garage.

The picture below show the principle behind pressing in the bush. The outer ring from the Off-Road Armory tool is placed over the hole and the bush is dropped in (with a smear of copper grease to help everything along)

Then the centre part of the tool is placed on top of the bush and the pressure is applied using the press, driving the bush into the arm.

Resulting in a bush neatly pressed into the arm.

However, it did not all go as smoothly as this for all the bushes. Whilst the outer part of the tool is a good fit, the inner part is right on the edge between sitting on the lip of the bush and dropping into the inner part where the rubber is. It is just a fraction too small. This applies to both ADK and Suzuki bushes as I have a mix of both on my car due to ADK running out.

The problem is slightly worse on the body end bushes as these are longer and stand proud of the tool. This means the tool/bush can move off of "straight" and result in damage to the bush. I had to clean up the damaged bush with a file to get rid of the edges that stood proud and would stop the bush fitting using a file!

The cure to this for the longer bushes was to stop using the tool and simply use a large flat surface to press on top of the bush. The pressing surface has to hace a hole in it to allow the bush centre to stand proud, an old flange from ny SJ did the trick.

I also created a very light chamfer on the edge of the arm with a file to "point" the bush in the correct direction. The first picture shows the chamfer....

Then the SJ flange pushed the bush in fair and square.

So I ended up with a smart pair of arms complete with bushes....

The next challenge is to fit the arms back onto the car. Because mine is a full rebuild, everything has been off the car and hence has "moved". If you were doing this as an upgrade your more likely to remove one arm at a time, keeping most parts in line. I had to line everything up to get the bolts in.

I would recommend that hang the arm from the body end first...

If you remember I got hold of new bolts and nuts (M12 x 88mm x 1.25 Metric Fine) as the old ones had to be cut out.

I would recommend AHC in Camberley for the bolts (but note that their website does not list them, but they hold a good stock of various lengths)

With the rear of the arm attached I then offered up the front arms to the mounting point on the axle. This was a long way off so I used a Jack to lift the arm into position and then a lever (ok - I admit it -  a large screwdriver!) to move it all around until the bolts fitted.

The bolts should be tightened to 90Nm or 65 lb-ft.

Variations on a theme

This was done on a 2004 M13A Engined Jimny. On the early G13BB engined Jimny the vacuum tubes for the front hubs runs along the leading arms, mounted with small screws through holes tapped into the arms. The Off-Road Armory arms do not have these holes in them so if you have piping coming down the arms you will have to sort some sort of different solution. Later Jimnys feed the pipes in from over the Diff. This has the advantage of keeping the pipes out of harms way, I would suggest you look at sorting out a similar arrangement or switch to manual hubs if you have an early Jimny with the pipes on the arms.