you should just bring these things to ohio.... LOL nothing wrong with 5 celicas and 3 beams in the garage at once bro

When dropping the subframe for the race car, 3 of the bolts on each side go int o the frame rail.... one bolt threads into a welded nut that is just welded to some thin sheet metal that has a high tendancy to rust out... that welded nut snapped off the sheet metal on each side, not a big deal cause its a track car and the other three bolts go into FRAME instead of just sheet metal.... prolly won't even put it back in.... dunno if this is the bolt you're talking about or not

I got started on my bushings Monday afternoon. Within 30 minutes, I had hit huge snags. The bolt on the driver's side that runs parallel to the ground refused to come out, the lower ball joint nuts had rounded off, and the end links, in their usual fashion, stripped out. Turns out that like I mentioned in my last post, the nut inside the subframe had broken free of the subframe and was spinning freely with the bolt. After 4 hours of trying, I put things back together as well as I could and drove to where I work to use their shop. Driving with a loose bolt in my control arm was a bit nerve racking. Not because the car was uncontrollable, but because it was so strangely normal. I knew there was a problem underneath the car but I couldn't feel it from the driver's seat. Then a bunch more stuff happened that I can skip because it's boring and involved lots of dollars being spent, so I'll just get to the pictures because that's what we're all here for anyway.

Rear bushing on the driver's side wasn't really a part of the control arm anymore. It fell out with no effort whatsoever.




This is the ring around the rear bushing that has been discussed before. I didn't even try to press the new bushing in before taking these out, but I had access to a die grinder that made the removal of these rings very easy.


And a picture of the bushings installed.



Due to Murphy's Law hitting me hard, the total time I had to spend on this job was 12 hours. Yeah, 12 hours for a four hour job at most. Let's just say that nothing went properly for me.

The steering definitely feels tighter now than it did before. I currently have no front sway bar end links so I haven't been pushing the car hard, nor have I launched hard to feel the difference yet. Once I get the new end links, I'll do a bit more testing and see how much better these are.

twosrus are fine for the front, usually a quick shipper too.

Nice hole in your subframe

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Thanks! Yeah, it was a PITA. What's worse is by the time I got the passenger side done, I forgot to have one of the other guys weld a new piece of steel over the hole to seal the subframe back up. It's rust waiting to happen until I get it fixed.

Oh dang look at that hole! What a bummer, but good stuff on getting the new bushings in there!

Luckily, i have brand new control arms in the mail and the bushings as well, so doing it before ever being in the car FTW

It seems like lots of people had problems changing these out.
Was a pain in the ass when I did mine too, took a couple days to get it done.

nothing like a good hole, where did u get the parts from?

I got mine from Paul in Poland, the GT4 Racing bushings. I got mine from eBay though, not his website.

http://myworld.ebay.com/gt4goodies/

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I've been trying to get a hold of the US distributor on celicatech but have never got a reply. it seems he hasn't been online in over 2 months.

Yeah, I gave up on RdRkt. Same story for me, simply no replies.

wow the rears are pretty expensive.

I contacted Paul through his website. He promptly replied and i ordered. Awaiting delivery from Poland....


Why would you want to add a middle man?

This post has been edited by playr158: Aug 10, 2012 - 6:34 PM

is there a price difference? or the same>

like we were discussing the other day richee3

http://www.jap-spec-performance.co.uk/stor...?products_id=92

crash tubes are useless. Everyway imaginable, don't do it.

I am concerned that there will be slight play in the rear bushing since there isnt that sleeve to hold the mount in place. The Metal sleeve pictured just rests on the mounting surfaces.
Wouldnt really the only way to fix this be with the oem sleeves (crush tubes)?


This post has been edited by Tigawoods: Nov 26, 2012 - 10:52 AM

Oh wow. When you said it wasn't a tight fit around the bolt, I thought you meant it was slightly bigger. I definitely didn't have that much of a gap in my bushings...

Yeah I contacted Paul through ebay and through his website to see what he says. Hopefully he gets back to me soon (he's pretty good about that) and hopefully I wont have to remove that bushing. It will be destroyed if I take them back out

There is a guy in europe who makes crush tubes that are muh thicker than those skinny oem ones

here is what Paul from GT4-Racing said.

"Hello,
yes you need to take new sleeves from Toyota dealer if you can't remove them from your old bushes.
yes, toyota part number is 90389-21003 and it costs about 4-5gbp here in toyota dealer.
You install them inside the bush metal sleeve, not in front subframe, just need to install it in bush metal sleeve and then put the wishbone into subframe...
Hope I answered you all clear now.
If you have any other questions, I'm here for you as support.

Cheers, Paul "

This post has been edited by Tigawoods: Nov 27, 2012 - 7:40 AM

Has anyone managed to smash the crush tube? I've hit a lot of big **** racing, but I have a habbit of just driving the car 'as is'. I really should probably upgrade all of my bushings.

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I would think that even if they were to crush, the control arm would still stay rigid in place. I mangled the hell out of mine when taking it out and the mount was still stiff in the pocket.
As long as there isnt significant movement Id say your safe...i guess

So you need crush tubes inside the bushings that come from Paul...good to know.
Maybe i'll grab a set of those aluminum ones thank Bonzai linked to.

This post has been edited by playr158: Nov 27, 2012 - 3:48 PM

I ordered the OEM toyota ones. Ill post pics when I get em

Mine didn't need them. There was a slight gap but nothing to be worried about.

There is truth to Dustin saying the tubes are not needed. With 150ftlbs to torque those bolts, your compressing the pocket that the arm is in, so for the most part, it shouldnt move, I just wanted the tubes as an extra security measure.




I took this from my progress thread



For the crash tubes, the "right" method for installing them would be to drop the subframe and drop the tubes in from the top. And in my quest to find a way NOT to drop the subframe I did it this way:


Since the crash tubes from toyota are fairly thin in thickness, I put them into the bushing hole (arm uninstalled). There are two different ends to the tube. One is tapered in and the other tapered out.
The tapered in end would be facing down upon installation.

Here is where my lazy crafty...ness came into play.
When the tube is centered in the bushing, about 1/4 of the tube sticks out on either end. Having it like this will NOT allow you to pop in the mount in the pocket...there just isnt the clearance for that. (hence why the proper way is to drop them in from the top) SO.
I took a mallet and hammered both of the ends of the tube inward and so they would be flush with the bushings metal center.
At that point, the arm will be able to be installed, and when aligned, I took a screw driver and pryed back out the knocked in lower end, and took a long screwdriver and hit the upper knocked in end so that it would be unfold back to straight.

does that make sense? I really should have taken pictures.

and this will more than likely NOT be able to be done with those thicker crush tubes. Those would require the subframe to be dropped.

I always try to speak the truth Glad you got them settled.

The tubes are thin and they are an extra security measure.
When I first did my bushings I bought new tubes and was wicked disappointed as to how thin they are. The amount of work needed (lowering the subframe properly) to get these in didn't justify them to me.
Their purpose is if the large bolt were to break clean off then the arm wouldn't just slide out, the tube would hold them in. IMO if I'm in a situation where the big bolt breaks the arm staying in is probably the least of my worries.

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TRUTH haha

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you are talking about the race on the big bushing? if so thats where an air hammer helps out. these are great bushings... did you get them in yet?

yeah theyve been in for a few weeks now