The weather has been lousy here. It's been cold and snowy all week and today is the worst, but I had to get something done.

I cut out the rear bolts on the LCA. Let me tell you that is some hard steel. After trashing three blades and barely making a scratch in it, I when out and bought the best Lennox metal cutting blades I could find. At close to $4 a piece, it took two blades on each side of the bushing. Finally, the LCA comes crashing down. Now to get the bushing out. First I tried my air hammer, but nothing moved except the shaing of my hands. I tried my ball joint press with a socket the same size as the bushing, but couldn't get it to work. With only two hands, I just couldn't keep everything lined up correctly. Perhaps with another pair of hands this would have worked. Round three: I heated up the outside of the part on the truck that holds the bushing and used a flat bit on my air hammer. All the sudden, pop, the bushing comes flying out. Great! Nope! The rubber with the inner bushing came out, but the sleeve is still in there. Crap! Tried hammering with a socket, a cold chisel, and finally I cut a groove in the sleeve and then knocked it out with a hammer and a cold chisel.

Now to get the new bushing back in there. That's not going well either...it's a tight fit. I need another pair of hands.

...I still have yet to tackle the other side.

And that's exactly why I let a shop do mine!

Yikes!

Well, I had an epiphany!

I used a wheel cylinder hone to clean the inside the mount. Just scored it down a little to remove any burrs and rust. Meanwhile, it put the bushing in the freezer and warmed up the mount and put some grease on the bushing and I was able to get it in there enough so I could line up the press. It all went in very nicely.

Now to put everything back together, replace the TRE's and then do the other side.

hmmm! Popsicle bushings!

You better finish up because accuweather.com is forecasting a nice snow storm on Sunday->monday for interior NYS.