I plan to change my 72 power drum brakes to power disks. I have the complete setup from another Cutlass including the master and all the brackets, brake hoses and lines. I also plan to remove the control arms for new bushings and springs, and ball joints if needed.

Is there rhyme or reason to oval vs. round bushings? Obviously I will look to see what I have, but did they vary by year, or model or what? Did GM buy control arms from 2 diferent companies? Does anyone know the real story?

 

When the front wheel hits a pothole, the wheel wants to move backward relative to the chassis as well as up. The oval LCA bushings provide more compliance in that direction, providing a smoother ride. I think the oval bushings were used predomanantly on the 1970-72 cars.

 

Just passing along this link to A body LCA's

 

Joe

Great post as I am right in the middle of doing my entire front end and rear, looking to sandblast arms prior to reassembly and install.

thx Gil

 

Nice article Allan.

 

Sorry Allen my mistake. On anther note spent a lot of time watching how to remove bushings out of A arms, from heating up to drilling to everything but explosives. After more consideration turned out it took about 10 seconds with my air chisel and some caution. Whole thing extracted in 1 piece.

thx

 

Just depends on how rusted the bushings are in the CA's. I went through this last year on the rear end rebuild and the year before on my front end rebuild. I had more trouble getting the bushings out than pressing the new ones in. Just a note - if you get the CA's powder coated, you'll need to clean away any powder coating from the holes where the bushings install or they'll never press in.

My car originally originally went into service in Ontario when it was new. It only spent 2 years there so it didn't have a chance to get rusted from all the salt used on the roads.

 

I went through that bs also check for the shape and carefully measure the bushing they had a few differences in them. I also for future upgrades would think strength better handling etc thouroughly thru.

 

Thanks for the replies. That link was very informative Allan. I plan to just blast and paint, so I shouldn't have any installation problems.

 

same here, understand that powder coating chips easily.