Race (and 1JZ) Buildup Journal

5/27/2004 - Rear Brakes and Upper A-arm Bushings

To compliment the front Wilwood calipers, and to make sure the added rear bias doesn't overwhelm the rear calipers completely, I had the brake pistons from the rear calipers ceramic coated with "heat blocker" by Polydyn in Houston. Reassembly of the calipers is simple, but requires the Toyota rebuild kit.

Next, I finally decided to tackle the bushings in the upper rear a-arms. The front a-arms proved to be easy once Ivan and Alex figured out how to do them. Unfortunately, the way they came up with requires the vice and at least two people. I was alone, and have been unable to get either a-arm free from the rear spindle. So, I had to come up with a new method.

However, I didn't get pictures of the removal because I had my hands full, and it was a bit tricky. I'll try to get pictures when I put the left side back together. Basically, instead of using the vice to pinch the metal flange on the outside of the bushing, I used a hacksaw on the first bushing and the cut off wheel on the second (I wasn't being as patient at that point) to cut off 2 parts of the lip so I had something to press the bushing out against. I then, by myself, held two sockets and a heavy peice of steel between the a-arm and one side of the C-clamp. I also held a much larger socket against the other side of the busing. Tighten the clamp and the bushing will come out. If it sounds hard, I'm not describing it well enough. It was nearly impossible (at first), but I got it in the end.

After removing both old bushings, I installed the new nylon bushings using my trusty piece of threaded rod. To get the bushing to go in that last little bit (they are slightly longer than the width of the arm), I used two aluminum blocks as spacers on the inside and repeated the juggling act from the removal phase (thus no pictures).

Finally, I reassembled everything on the back right corner suspension, checking all bolts. The old rusted rotor will stay on the car for now, along with the old pads until much closer to my first event. No reason to have the good stuff on there rusting.