I'm doing the whole enchilada myself right now---all the bushings and
lower ball joints. Unless you have a big honkin press, don't even
think about doing this on your own. I know. I know... people have
managed it in their garages with a big vise, an Autozone kit and a
LOT of time and luck, but pressing out bushings and lower ball joints
is a very hard and dirty job. Have a look at the lower control arm
bushings and try to imagine what it will take to get a new bushing in
there... a minor miracle of physics, that's what! I took all my
stuff---upper and lower control arms and lower ball joints to a local
machine shop---they did the whole thing for $150 and did it in a day.
The amount of money you are saving by doing all the removal and
install yourself easily qualifies you for a guilt-free trip to your
local friendly machine shop. I like the idea of collecting new tools
and doing it myself but not if I'm only going to do it once in the
life of the van and use the tools one time. What's the point? The
machine shop guy showed me the monster press and all the sleeves he
uses---he had to make one up for my lower ball joints---and there is
no way in h@ll that I was going to get even CLOSE to getting it done
in under a week of spitting and cursing---and that would be after I
collected all the different sleeves, etc that I would need. Life is
too short... spend the money on your local machine shop and use the
free time you gained to futz around on your Dometic... = )

Jeff
On Aug 10, 2007, at 8:25 PM, Automatic digest processor wrote:

> Date:    Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:21:17 -0400
> From:    Wesley Pegden <wes@CS.UCHICAGO.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Control Arm Bushings (do I need to WELD?)
>
> I like this attitude (so long we're talking about parts that are
> cheap!).  The thing that's putting me off from doing the lower ball
> joints is that you need some tools I don't have (well, that and the
> fact
> that the boots on the ones I have right now aren't torn yet).  But
> maybe
> I will go this route.  Anybody know if autozone lends out the tools
> you
> need to remove and replace the lower ball joints?
>
> Thanks again!
> Wes