Well, the time has come, by rear are are shot (did i spell "shot" right?).
Bang, clunk, BANG, not the smooth ride i like.
Good news bought some brand new Hyd Bushes.
Bad news, dont think i'll be able to fit em myself (That rear axle bar looks a bit heavy even after i've opened me can o' spinach.

So fs-oc guys/gals, who would you recommend?
I was gonna take it to the kwik fit guys and dupe them into quoting me on paper to fit them, but dunno.
Any ideas any one???
Come on...... :D

This is one job that quick fit definitely wont be capable of doing..firstly the rear axle needs to come off..bushes taken out usually by cutting through them with a hacksaw from the insides out without cutting into the mounting area of the axle its self ..then with a chisel you need to physically hammer out the segments of the old bush..once they are out its a pig of a job getting the new ones back in because the tolerances between the outsides of the new bush and the inside of the axle where they go are very tight to say the least and fiat and engineering companies have presses with huge tonnage pressure capacity to push the blighters in..to me its far easier if you were to get the bush/axle mounting area machined through at that point so the tolerance between the two are not so tight and you are able to use a tool to pull the bushes into place..yhis is one for a company that has the machinery to do the job IMO unless you have the expertise and equipment to take the axle down yourself and a company who could ream the axle out for you .. who can do it now that is the question..

I'm not going to bore you with too many details, just a quick run down of how I replaced the bushes on my Multiwagon.

Measured the ride high(important).

I used axle stands under the rear of the car direct onto the chassi and dropped the axle to the floor being carefull not to damage the brake pipes etc that I left connected.

Checked the bushes by inserting the bolt and bending them down so I could see properly. As you can see the near side bush had completely gone and had cracks in it.


I knocked off the end plates and took photo's of their positions so I could align the new ones the same way.



I then cut the center out of the bushes using a hack saw.


That left the outer shell of the bush so I carefully cut though it with a hack saw and pushed it out.



Cleaned up the bore and gave it a thin coat of copper grease.


Drawed a line on the bush so I could align it properly with the weld on the axle.



Pushed the bush in using a large bearing puller.


After pushing it in about half way I swopped the bearing puller round and use a large steel ring to give clearence for the rear of the bush and to give better clearence to the bearing puller. Checked I had lined it up properly before continuing.


The final push home.



The bush is fully pushed in and correctly aligned.


Raised up the axle and bolted it back to the chassi.


Tightened the 8 bolts holding the brackets, clipped the brake hoses etc back in place and then put the wheels back on. Checked the ride high was the same as before and torqued up the bolts that go through the bushes.


Took me 5 hours. Not terribly difficult to do. Reducing the interference fit to a more managable level was the key. I removed 0.15mm from both new bushes but it was still hard work to wind in the bearing puller.

That sort off says it all brill pics gives you all details of how its done..thanks again shadeyman..

Originally Posted by PNL

That sort off says it all brill pics gives you all details of how its done..thanks again shadeyman..

Will add this to the service bulletin on bushes in the guides

Post now added

it will deffo be it mate, about the garages, most of them will turn you away as they wont have tools to do the job, have a look around for a fiat dealership, but they will charge a bomb, i would probably look for some1 who's got a clue how to do the job, even without the "special tool" they will do the job