Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

I had another look the other day but I gave up pretty quickly again. I can't get at the front mounting bolt because there's some sort of suspension rod in the way. This rod sits in a large bush pivot, and mounts onto the lower suspension arm with 2 bolts. I'm not sure what this rod is, it doesn't seem to do anything other than stabilise the forwards/backwards movement of the suspension.

Anyway, my question is, is there a way to get the swaybar off without removing this other suspension rod? I had a go with my breaker bar but it's on VERY tightly. I'd rather not remove it unless absolutely necessary. I also don't know what issues I will have trying to put it back in, like will I need a press or something to squeeze the bush back in?

Any advice appreciated!

Edit: I'm guessing this rod is the castor rod, but I could be wrong because I don't know much about suspension. Oh, and the car is an R33 GTS-t.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/23500-removing-front-swaybar/
Share on other sites

I pulled open the packets of bushes I got from Whiteline and read the instructions. Those rods are in fact the castor rods, or rather, the radius rods which control the castor. I think I can put the bushes in myself. The Whiteline guy mentioned needing a press to get them in but I think I can do it with my hands or maybe a rubber mallet :)

I'm going to pull the radius rods off this weekend and do the swaybar, as well as giving the bushes a go. But what I need to know is, what are the torque settings for the radius rod bolts? Does anyone have a list of torque settings for the various suspension bits?

Thanks for the info Lenno.

So now it seems the biggest problem after undoing that really tight nut holding them on is putting the new bushes in. Could I use something like a vice or G-clamp to push them in? Just thinking of what I can use around home so I don't have to take the car to a suspension shop. I guess once I have them off I could just take the rods themselves in to be done on the spot, hopefully something that can be done on a Saturday morning without costing a fortune (that rules Midas out).

The rear bushes look to be a lot easier, because they are in 2 halves. I'm pretty sure they will go in fairly easily because I shouldn't have to push the "lipped" part of the bush through anything, unlike the radius rod ones.

no probs jim...

i tryed the vice, g clamp etc ended up taking them to my work to do on my day off (hate that). Just take the radious rods in to a workshop with a press if they charge any more than $5 a side they are robbing ***s.

Btw jim i got some awesome boot/bump kit yesterday should suit the shocks down to a tee... i'll let you lnow how they go

lenno

Oops, I forgot to take pictures :D

Last night I got all motivated and stuff, and got the radius rods out. I used various methods to undo the tightarse nuts and bolts, including using an old aluminium tubing bed head as an extension on the breaker bar. After the awkwardness of that I used the jack.

I got both rods out, then most of the swaybar off, then the LAST FRIGGEN NUT on the swaybar rounded off! I couldn't believe it. After much swearing I got my housemate's anglegrinder out and ground one side of the nut off. Thankfully I had a replacement nut the same thread (not the same shape tho'). The whole thing took about an hour longer than it should have coz of that nut.

Got the new swaybar in, then decided against trying to use a vice to get the old bushes out. I took both rods and new bushes to my local mechanic, who didn't have a press but referred me to a nearby one that did. I went there and it was done in about 20 minutes (I watched and helped in some bits). Pressing them out was no dramas, but the slippery urethane bushes kept popping out because they didn't have a metal sleeve.

They charged me $20 which I think is quite reasonable, their hourly rate was $60 which is pretty cheap already and 1/3 of an hour is $20 so I think it was entirely fair. Before he started he even warned me that he might not have a cone in that size and he'd have to make one, which would mean I'd be up for an hour's labour. But luckily he found that it was the same size as something on a Landcruiser which he already had the bit for.

Lenno, where did you get the boots and bumpstops from and how much were they? Got any pics?

I got everything in the front back in, and now the car handles superbly! The extra castor angle makes the steering more steady. It wants to straighten up more so I guess it makes it feel a little heavier, but in a nice way. There's no body roll to speak of anymore.

The rear is still a bit sloppy, but that's because my tyres are pretty crap and I haven't installed the camber kit on there yet. I'm thinking of getting a hydraulic press myself rather than taking the arms to a suspension shop, there are 4 bushes to press out instead of 2 so I'm guessing it would be around $40 labour. I can get a press for not much more than that, so I should be able to do it at home and then have a press for future use.

hey crazO.... if whiteline supply you the same boots and bumps i got, i don't recomend them. The best boot/bump stop combination i have found and fitted are monroe pk018. These bump stops require cutting but the boots fit a treat. $120 for a set but its good insurance

cheers

lenno

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Have you not seen geospy.ai? It can now give GPS co ords to within a metre from a photo, even if it's a random photo you take inside. Supposedly at the moment only the government/law enforcement has access to that... Supposedly...
    • I've got the rear ones, they're certainly beefy. I need to take them to my driveshaft guru to check over, he's very fussy about the quality of components so I'll let you know if they are made of cheese by a blind man.   Are you in Australia? A mate just had a set of EN26 shafts made for his K20 Lotus by our fabricator which were quite cheap (compared to Driveshaft Shop) so if you can procure the CV's and draw what you need he'd make them for ~$800 for the pair.
    • Had I known the diff between R32 and R33 suspension I would have R33 suspension. That ship has sailed so I'm doing my best to replicate a drop spindle without spending $4k on a Billet one.
    • OEM suspension starts to bind as soon as the car gets away from stock height. I locked in the caster and camber before cutting off the kingpin. I then let the upright down in a natural (unbound) state before re-attaching it. Now it moves freely in bump and droop relative to the new ride height. My plan is to add GKTech arms before the car is finished so I can dial camber and caster further. It will be fine. This isn't rocket science. Caster looks good, camber is good, upper arm doesn't cause crazy gain and it is now closer to the stock angle and bump steer checks out. Send it.
    • Pay careful attention to the kinematics of that upper arm. The bloody things don't work properly even on a normal stock height R32. Nissan really screwed the pooch on that one. The fixes have included changing the hole locations on the bracket to change the angle of the inner pivot (which was fairly successful but usually makes it impossible to install or remove the arm without unbolting the bracket from the tower, which sucks) and various swivelling upper arm designs. ALL the swivelling upper arm designs that look like a capital I (with serifs) suck. All of them. Some of them are in fact terribly unsafe. Even the best one of them (the old UAS design) shat itself in short order on my car. The only upper arm that works as advertised and is pretty safe is the GKTech one. But it is high maintenance on a street car. I'm guessing that a 600HP car as (stupidly, IMO) low as you are going is not going to be a regular driver. So the maintenance issues on suspension parts are probably not going to be a problem. But you really must make sure that however your fairly drastically modded suspension ends up, that the upper arms swing through an arc that wants to keep the inner and outer bolts parallel. If the outer end travels through an arc that makes that end's bolt want to skew away from parallel with the inner bolt, you will build up enormous binding and compressing forces in the bushes, chew them out and hate life. The suspension compliance can actually be dominated by the bush binding, not the spring rate! It may be the case that even something like the GKTech arm won't work if your suspension kinematics become too weird, courtesy of all the cut and shut going on. Although you at least say there's no binding now, so maybe you're OK. Seeing as you're in the build phase, you could consider using R33/4 type upper arms (either that actual arm, OEM or aftermarket) or any similar wishbone designed to suit your available space, so alleviate the silliness of the R32 design. Then you can locate your inner pivots to provide the correct kinematics (camber gain on compression, etc).
×
×
  • Create New...