How to remove the control arm, Request for help including pictures Options

[Mangozac]

Hi everyone,

Well after the accident a few weeks ago the Celi is coming back together very slowly. The only thing stopping me now is replacement of the control arms and this entails two main issues. The first problem is sourcing replacement bushes for the front control arm rear mount - Toyota only sells them with a new control arm for 600 bucks! The second problem is how to actually install the control arms. Please read on:

So what started all of this is the fact that when I slammed sideways into a gutter I mangled the front left control arm (amongst other things). So I sourced a replacement from the local wreckers (who had to get one in from somewhere down south as there are no wrecked ST204s here in Queensland!) which looks good. Removing the control arm is supposed to be easy - just undo the two nuts and bold that fasten it to the steering knuckly ball joint, undo the sway bar link and then unto the two control arm mounts. Everything came off quite nicely until I reached the rear mount. I removed the bolt that goes vertically up into the chassis but the control arm stayed fixed in place because of a metal "inner bush" (for lack of a better term) that protrudes out both ends of the rubber main bush.

We'll take a short break here to look at my fancy pictures:

Here's the right side control arm with eveything labeled. This is for two reasons - firstly in case I have any names wrong and secondly to help anybody who is reading this thread as an educational exercise keep up. Viewed from top.


The next piece of high quality photoshopping shows what the rear mount would look like when installed and viewed from the side. So the inner bush and fastening bolt would go vertically through the rubber bush.


Finally here are the inner bushes. They're just bits of metal tubing with a flared end on the top. Don't mind the really obliterated one - I'll discuss it later:



Anyway back to the removal. I jumped onto my PC and looked at the manuals I had downloaded from Celicatech.com but the diagram of the suspension that featured the control arm mounts had a completely different rear mount. Instead of being bolted on with a vertical bolt, the bolt went horizontally like on the front mount. This was starting to get a bit frustrating.

So I did a bunch of pulling and prying, trying to get the inner bush out. Once it's out, the control arm should just slide out. I ended up having a mate of my Dad's help out and much to my disapproval he got a pry bar and simply wedged apart the crossmember/chassis mounts and pulled the arm out. Actually it wasn't simple - it took him ages and he made a mess of the crossmember parts and the inner bush was a bit mangled. So that's definitely NOT the right way to do it.

So we're halfway there but I need to get a new inner bush. I rang Toyota and the bloke there informed me that I can't get a replacement bush from them without buying a whole new control arm. No thanks! I talked to a mate and he said if I got a polyurethane performance bush it would come with the inner bush too so I jumped at the idea of upgrading and decided to pull the right side control arm off too (because they come as a kit for both the front left and right). This time I decided to just sacrifice the inner bush and bashed it out of shape with a hammer and screwdriver so that I could just pull it out the bottom. That was still a bit of a mission and took me ages but I finally got it out.

It was at this stage that I realised that the flared part on top of these inner bushes was going to prevent any new ones from being pushed up into position - they seem like they would need to be forced down. But if we follow that line of though then that would mean that the whole entire crossmember would have to be dropped down, which isn't a 2-minute job - it has engine mounts and all sorts of things attached! And to add insult to injury I then found out that the performance bushes aren't as easy to get as I expected so I have no idea where to get some.

Sorry for the long post but here we are with the questions:

1. Does anyone have a repair manual that shows the correct control arm mounts and removal procedure? She's a 98 ST204.

2. Can I buy the replacement inner bushes from anywhere?

3. Does anybody know where to get performance bushes from?

I'm off to uni for a couple of weeks tomorrow (borrowing Mum's car) but I'm hoping to come back and get the Celi back driveable again. I'm missing her like crazy! So any help is really appreciated!

Thanks guys,

Zac

[Mangozac]

Thanks for the suggestion but TBH I'm over the performance bushings idea. I just want to get the replacement collars and get her going again

I'm gonna call Toyota today and give them the collar part number from Wannabe to make sure they can get them...