How to: Front Anti Roll Bar bush Replacement

[myboxa]

Thought i might start a little thread on the old Box, i have a few jobs planned and thought some of them may be of help to somebody

I have a had a knocking at the rear which developed quite recently and thought at first it was the drivers side coffin arm, Passenger side changed not long after i bought it, had a look around underneath and found the bushes in the rear anti roll bar had some play, so changed them prior to the MOT, thought if the rears are shot then its highly likely the fronts have gone or going, to be honest i also had a knocking at the front but never found anything so suspected it could be the bush at the top of the struts which i intend to replace at a later date.

Car is a daily driver up to now as the wife needs use of the other so i need to plan jobs in,

Ordered some powerflex purple bushes for the front anti roll bar and picked them up this afternoon and thought while its dry tonight i might as well crack on and change em.

This how i did mine and the job only took just over 1 hour, just plodding on and cups of coffeein between, now i have done it once the job would probaly take half the time if it had to be repeated hoping that don't need to ahppen for while

Jacked front of car up and had look at what was involved did not look to hard so decided to crack on, the fronts are a little more involved than the rears and need a few bits removing, this isn't to difficult, only needed 3 sockets and a small screw driver.

first job was to remove the front undertray, 4 plastic nuts on each corner,

the rest of the undertray is held in place by spring clips, 6 if i remember rightly.

not come across this type before, and after a little poking about decided the best way was to slip a small screw driver in between the clip and the undertray, (see Pic) and gently prise them off, ( when doing it this way watch it as the little fekkers fly)

Once the undertary is removed you can then gain acess to the ARB bracket, and the 2 cross braces, these will need to be removed to allow the ARB to drop low enough to easily remove the bush and top bracket

You will need to remove both the bolts that secure the anti roll bar bush and the bolt that secures the front tuning fork, slackening the bracket bolt (front one) that sescures the bracket to the tub and winding it off will allow you to swing the bracket out of the way.

Once the ARB drops you will then see the bush and top bracket, push the top bracket up and remove then remove the bush

top bracket removed

new bushes

once the bushes were out you could see they did look oval compared to the new ones, due to the ARB being mostly covered by the undertray it was difficult to check them in situ for any play, one Geo set up and an MOT failed to identify them.

Reinstall the bushes onto the roll bar and slide the top bracket back making sure the bracket is aligned to the raised edges on the bushes then push them back into place, the lower bracket will need to be refitted and tightened up make push them fully home.

(ready for lower bracket to be refit)

refit the lower brackets and only tighten fully the front bolt and the tuning fork bolt, runt the ARB bolts up but dont tighten them fully yet.(make sure the bushes are pushe up against the stop ring on the ARB,

Dont know why but the ARB bolts on one side went straight, in the other side took a bit of fiddling, make sure you get quite a few turns of the bolts by hand before attempting to ratchet them up, just in case you manage to cross thread them.

Next refit and tighten the cross brace bolts.

then lower the car back onto the floor, i turned the steering wheel a couple of times lock to lock and pushed down on the wings to settle the suspension, you can then reach under and fully tighthen the remaing ARB bracket bolts.(rear 2)

Jack the car back up, check all bolts are tight and not missed any and refit the plastic undertray dont refit the plastic nuts until after you have slipped the spring clips back into place as you may have to move the undertray about a bit to refit the clips, final check and time for road test.

RESULT knocking gone, hoping the bit of wandering when on the bumpy stuff has disappeared will find that out later

hope this may be of use to somebody, never thought to look and see if its in the How To Thread , i have received plenty of good info from the site and members in the past so thought i may give a little back in return.

[John T]

Good job and well explained Tony Mate, this is bound to help people in the future.

[myboxa]

Not such a big job but every little helps mate

[Richie3336]

Nice write up and photos. Great stuff

[Ampaul]

Nice write up, thanks. Might try this myself but will probably bottle it.

[myboxa]

Nice write up, thanks. Might try this myself but will probably bottle it.

You wont mate its easy enough, just set a couple of hours and take your time, it really is an easy job

[thefunkygibbon]

can you upload the pics again mate?

and do you need 2 on front and 2 on rear?  which ones did you use?  it looks like its about 70-80quid if 4 are needed (from what i can see on ebay)

[Lonewolfgjp]

I would recommend using the Porsche oem bushes, 4 needed in total about £30 all in👍

[red rocket]

5 hours ago, thefunkygibbon said:

can you upload the pics again mate?

He last visited the forum in October 17 so don't hold your breath. Sadly alot of posts messed up when photofekkit started charging.

[thefunkygibbon]

5 hours ago, Lonewolfgjp said:

I would recommend using the Porsche oem bushes, 4 needed in total about £30 all in👍

4 in total front and back? or just front?  is it worth doing them "just because" (prob havent been replaced since new tbh) or is it not going to make much difference unless they are completely buggered?

 

1 hour ago, red rocket said:

He last visited the forum in October 17 so don't hold your breath. Sadly alot of posts messed up when photofekkit started charging.

ah yeah, true enough. 

[s3swiss]

For anyone browsing this subject - just beware that the plastic / paint covering on your old anti-roll bar might have seen better days. This means it will fall off when you remove the old bushes and will leave you with a smaller diameter ARB where the bush fits, possibly meaning the bush won’t grip the bar as tightly and possibly failing MOT. I’d suggest if not an issue, leave well alone unless you can get a replacement cheap ARB or are upgrading it anyway. 

[½cwt]

A little more info, the 3 bolt sizes in the 'boomerang' bracket have the following torque settings:

Front in to side chassis member 16mm hex - 120 Nm (89 lb ft)

Centre hex on tuning fork 18mm - 160 Nm (118 lb ft)

ARB clamping bolts, 2 rear most bolts, 15mm hex - 75 Nm (56 lb ft)

[Darren Sapsford]

What size bushes are needed as there seems.to be three different sizes?

[½cwt]

On 4/24/2020 at 10:51 AM, Darren Sapsford said:

What size bushes are needed as there seems.to be three different sizes?

Depends on the suspension fitted to the car, standard or sports  Look for code 029 (standard) or 030 on the label inside the bonnet that has a whole block of 3 digit codes on it as well as the paint code and a lot of other details on the spec of the car as it left the factory. More info at this link:

https://www.stuttcars.com/technical/option-codes/

[PaulQ]

Best to measure it to be sure

[Darren Sapsford]

2 hours ago, ½cwt said:

Depends on the suspension fitted to the car, standard or sports  Look for code 029 (standard) or 030 on the label inside the bonnet that has a whole block of 3 digit codes on it as well as the paint code and a lot of other details on the spec of the car as it left the factory. More info at this link:

https://www.stuttcars.com/technical/option-codes/

Cheers just standard on mine