Howdy all,

I've been waiting for the weather on the east coast to warm back up since about November, and finally got a chance this past week. My aim was/ is to replace the front a-arm bushings, ball joints, bump stops, sway bar bushings, and swap springs/ install weight jacks. The a-arm bushings have caused me much consternation over the last week, and I reached something of a breaking point yesterday (literally, unfortunately). So, getting the bushings out wasn't pleasant, but wasn't too difficult; did the whole "melt rubber, cut sleeve, hammer sleeve out of shape and pull it out" method on all 4, and it worked reasonably well without damaging the sleeve mounting surfaces on the a-arm or distorting the ears. Paint finally dried, so I took my a-arms over to my brother's place to get the new Del-A-Lum units pressed in. For the shorter width/ larger diameter bushings, this was relatively easy; used the bit of angle iron provided by GlobalWest to support the ears, and got them pressed in with no dramas on both arms.

The longer/ skinnier bushing sleeves, however, were a different story. We were struggling to get much movement on the sleeves, so we took some measurements using calipers.
For the outside hole of both a-arms, where the bushing collar presses in, we measured 1.448in. On the collar of the actual aluminum sleeve, we measured 1.465in (17 thousandths)
For the inner hole of both a-arms, where the body of the bushing collar presses in, we measured 1.427in. On the body of the bushing sleeve, 1.444in (17 thousandths)

At this point, we had yet to press the shorter/ fatter bushing in on the other a-arm, so we measured that as well. I don't have the exact numbers on hand at the moment, but the bushing sleeves were perfectly 5 thousandths oversized on both ends. The larger bushing on the 2nd a-arm pressed in just as well as the first.

Now, my brother does actual machining work, and I do not, so these numbers didn't mean a whole lot to me at first. As it turns out, 17 thousandths is an incredibly high amount for a press-fit, apparently somewhere around double the interference one would see when pressing a barrel into an AK-47, which itself is already on the rather extreme end of tight fits. The 5 thousandths of the shorter bushings was absolutely perfect, and still required several tons of force from the hydraulic press to get in. Upon closer inspection of the inner-side collar flange of the a-arm where we had tried to press the skinny bushing in, we discovered that the collar of the bushing sleeve had actually caused the flange on the a-arm to slightly split apart.

I'm pretty devastated about this, and I'm really hoping that we can at least fix the a-arm, but now I'm curious to know if anyone else has run into this much trouble with the Del-A-Lum bushings. It almost seems like I was sent the wrong part for the skinny bushings, but I'm not entirely sure; I went and checked the size of a factory style replacement on RockAuto, and it was listed at 36.6mm, or approx. 1.4409in. This would still be an insanely tight fit on my a-arms, at around 12-13 thousandths over, but still 3-4ish thousandths smaller than the Del-A-Lum sleeves. Are my control arms just inexplicably smaller than normal? I know bushing sizes changed after mid '83, but I haven't found anything to indicate that anything changed in '92 (car was built July '92, so relatively late for a thirdgen).

If anyone happens to have factory a-arms with no bushings lying around, would you be able to take measurements of the bushing hole diameters? I'm really hoping I don't have to replace the a-arms, and I would definitely like to avoid using tubular arms after all I've read about them. Poly bushings are also not really something I want to resort to, hence why I went for the Del-A-Lum. Assuming we can manage to sufficiently repair the split in the collar, I'm considering either having the sleeves turned down slightly, or perhaps even slightly boring out the a-arm holes. Neither of these options is really ideal in my mind either, but I don't see why it shouldn't work; also don't see why my a-arms would be so seemingly out of spec on that one bushing mount for both sides... I'd appreciate any measurements or advice on this, and I did reach out to GlobalWest via email this morning to see if they had any insight on the matter. Apologies for the long post, just wanted to provide as much info as possible. I can post images later today once I'm back home for reference to everything I talked about, I understand that it may be a bit hard to follow what I'm talking about.

 

Quick update- spoke to Doug from GW on the phone when I got home from work, he'd never seen the spec that my car seems to have either! Not sure if a previous owner put some kinda oddball a-arm in, or if it's just a late late '92 quirk, but GlobalWest is going to turn some bushings down to match as a proper press fit for my arms, for which I am very grateful! Looking forward to installing those next week, GlobalWest has wonderful customer service! Curious to see if any other late '92 owners happen to have their a-arms out, I'd like to see if our cars just have funny bushings on the longer side... maybe it's just a 3.1 thing, but after scouring every post in the suspension forum all the way back to 2009, I couldn't find anyone else with this same issue.

 

I guess so! That's pretty wild they're doing those custom for you.

 

Yep, massive shoutouts to Doug over at GW! The new bushings finally came in; he turned down a regular set by 12 thou on the collar and end (where the press fit happens), left the middle untouched, and they fit perfectly! Still have no idea why my bushing bores are the size that they are, haven't found any stock GM equivalent yet, but the project can finally move on!

Unfortunately, ran into a different (completely unexpected and unrelated issue): my dang brand new AC Delco ball joints were no good! I'd pressed them in back when I was pressing in the bushings, and all seemed well. Got the a-arms bolted up yesterday, knuckles back on, everything torqued down and looking good. Went to grease everything, and got to the ball joints.... one side had a hole in the (permanently attached) dust boot, and grease was not staying where it should. On the other side, however..... the grease did not seem to want to go in. Tried a few different grease gun fittings, verified that the zerk fitting was good separate from the ball joint, tried rotating the ball joint and loading/ unloading it, just didn't want to take grease. After trying for awhile, the bottom of the cup on the ball joint ended up being separated by the hydraulic pressure of the small amount of grease that WAS able to go in.... completely trashed. Talked to some friends who let me know that AC Delco is outsourcing their ball joint production these days, likely to Moog..... was also recommended that I try out Mevotech Supreme ball joints instead, so I got them ordered on one-day air from Summit... need my car to be driveable by Friday because I'm going to be borrowing a friend's garage to finally do my manual swap. Well, Murphy and his dang law struck once again, and now UPS is telling me there was some kind of mechanical error holding up the delivery now it's always the parts that you don't pay much mind to that end up biting ya..... on the bright side, everything else has bolted up beautifully, and the Del-A-Lum bushings fit great in the k-member! Here's hoping that UPS can get the mechanical issue sorted out so I can get those ball joints in today after work, hate seeing the car just sitting there on jackstands (and dad is tired of my brake rotors sitting in his garage ).

Anyways, thank you once again to Doug and everyone at Global West! Disappointed with AC Delco at the moment, but at least it's going to be an easy fix once the new ball joints get in.... so long as Murphy doesn't continue enforcing his law

 

I’m at the point now where I don’t think I’ll ever buy an ACDelco part again. I don’t have any on my thirdgen but on my 4th gen I went through 3 ACD window motors before I converted to manual crank. All 3 ACD motors, none lasting more than a couple weeks. One died before I even finished adjusting the tracks and this was with the Autotrix kit too. I rebuilt my front suspension in stages and when I got to rebuilding the upper A-arms I replaced the bushings, strut mounts and ball joints. One of the ACD ball joints completely stripped the nut, destroying the shank’s threads as I torqued them down using a good torque wrench to factory spec. I looked at the yet uninstalled bj for the other side and saw that below the crenellations on the castle nut there were a whopping 3 full circumference threads. Unfortunately my original nuts wouldn’t fit the replacement bj’s. It was then I swore I’d never buy another ACD part. You’re just as good ordering from a no name vendor on Amazon.

 

Man, that really sucks to see..... I'd never had an issue with ACD parts before these ball joints, but I'm def gonna be more wary of 'em in the future. Forgot to update, but the Mevotech ball joints went in and took grease just fine, good units. Suspension feels great now, but I still need to do a proper alignment on it