i was finally able to install the inserts and they made a big difference in how the car drives. I used to have a slight pull to the right and i would need to keep slight pressure on the wheel to counter. After i drove it today that slight pull is alot less prominent and the car feels like it drives alot straighter. It feels like the rear wheels kind of follow the Front instead of dragging. Just slight touches in the wheel make the car turn and it feels alot lighter and sharp.
Starting off i decided to back the car up on some ramps so i could get a good look at what was going to be involved. I took a pry bar and i could move the control arm around a little bit so it wasn’t under alot of pressure. I figured why not try it up on the ramps. Doing it up on the ramps ended up working out good and made it alot easier.
There are three 15mm bolts, two holding the bracket and one going through the bushing into the control arm. I wasn’t able to get a ratchet in there so i used a 15mm ratcheting wrench. I loosened all 3 and took the top one out to double check that there wasn’t pressure on the control arm.
Once both bracket bolts were out i could move the control arm around with a pry bar. The center bolt would not slide out all the way and would hit the subframe so i was able to pry it down far enough to get the bolt to slide out. After prying it different ways i started working on sliding the bracket off of the control arm.
Getting the bracket to slide off was the hardest part because the control arm needed to be pried outward and down at the same time. Moving the control arm around took a decent amount of muscle so i tried using a jack to lift the car up some to take the load off of the suspension. This was a good thought but a bad idea because it put more pressure on the control arm and made it harder so that was a no. I ended up wedging a screw driver up in there to hold it out then i got a ratchet strap and used that to crank it down about an inch. I hooked it to the hole in the lower control arm. Once i did this the bracket came off pretty easy.
i got some clearer photos of this same step when i did the other side.
This is where i ran into a slight issue. The washers they sent with the inserts were not big enough to slide onto the control arm for the back insert. I did not have the time to try to grind it out so i decided to leave it. The control arm was just big enough to catch the inside edge of the back insert so hopefully it will hold it in. I also decided to glue the inserts in so I guess i will see if they hold up.
Once i got the new bracket slid on i went ahead and put the center bolt in and snugged it a little. Doing this is important because if you release the ratchet strap first and it goes up, the subframe will be in the way again blocking the bolt from going in.
I released the strap and tapped the bracket back in place with a hammer. I am not sure what the torque specs are on these but they did have red thread lock on them so i put some fresh thread lock on and tightened them by hand. I got the two bracket bolts off with a short wrench but the bolt in the control arm took two wrenches stacked to break free so that can give you an idea of how tight they should be.
The first side took me about an hour but once i figured out how to do it, the other side only took 20 min. When i had the bracket off i moved the control arm around to see how it effected the wheel. When moving it in and out it seemed to adjust the camber at a slight angle. That slight angle would also effect the toe a small bit. Its hard to explain but imagine you are looking at the wheel and you put a line across it at 45 degrees. This was the pivot point where it would tilt on so you can see how it would effect both toe and camber. I am hoping that this will help solve my rear tire wear issue, i do carry alot of weight in the car which might be making that bushing buckle more than it should. I see alot of xc90s that look like the rear wheels are tilted in on the back so this might be a possible fix for that. Next I am getting an alignment done this week and i am putting on some new tires so hopefully it feels like new again.