Can't find rear axle bushings

[Bert]

I had a look at the trailing arm pivots on my Aspire-swapped car yesterday and the bushings are "toast" on the passenger side. Matter of fact the through bolt is also bouncing around enough that I will have to repair the body mount itself. For now I will use bushings and mounts from my spares collection and will get the ball rolling on putting an order in with FourGreen. (Thanks bravekozak). Nobody has chimed-in yet as to whether Festy and Aspire bushings are the same. Because if they are; folks that do the Aspire swap will have the option of hanging on to some of their Festy parts and/or re-using the better of the bunch while swapping.

[F3BZ]

ford, in its wisdom, never issued a part# for the rear torsion arm bushing. if you needed them you had to buy the whole torsion beam/arm which came with them already installed. i can imagine there were few sold that way unless insurance was picking up the tab for a rear ender. there are still a few OEM beams available for the aspire but i imagine a price at least $400. interestingly, there are 5 seperate part #'s for 94-97 aspires. they are different depending on whether it was a 2 or 4 door with and without ABS and the 96/97 aspire had a seperate part# for its' torsion beam. i wonder if the trailing arm is longer for the 2 door or the sway bar diameter is different. i don't know. the aspire beam i have has the same dimensions as my festiva beam and the sway bar is 9/16".
compared side by side, the bushings look exactly the same. i would have to press them out to be sure. if they are the same, then you can get AVELLA bushings from 4green also. in fact, they list the whole beam at a reasonable cost of about $200 although shipping will probably kill you.

[Bert]

Maurice never read any of my parts lookup posts.
First, you look in the Russian Kia catalog to find the 3 door Pride part number and then go to Four Green to check the price and order.
MD00128460B costs $5.79 each + Fedex from Korea.
Just in case you can't read Russian, choose the third item down (Chassis), and then select the third item down again (mechanism rear carriage), item 10 is what you need.

Succinct my boy! I followed your links and put an order in for 4 bushings; shipping is almost twice the price of the parts but 'oh well'. I hope that the bushings have the metal core/tube in them as I see that is what wore or rusted out on mine.

[Bert]

Now this begs the question: Is there an easy or painless way to get the old bushings out of the trailing arm?

[Hot_Wheels]

um i used a c clam and a pipe, using the edge to push it out. but there was no simple way to install it. I had to use a friends press. so moral of the story is use a press to get it out and a press to put in. the easiest way.

[Bert]

um i used a c clam and a pipe, using the edge to push it out. but there was no simple way to install it. I had to use a friends press. so moral of the story is use a press to get it out and a press to put in. the easiest way.

I suspected it would be something convoluted like that. Sure hope I don't have to take the beam off to do this.

[nitrofarm]

I suspected it would be something convoluted like that. Sure hope I don't have to take the beam off to do this.

How else would you get at the Bushings?

[Bert]

How else would you get at the Bushings?

You can separate the pivot from the body bracket easy enough. Obviously I'll try that first. And pre-prepare the other Aspire beam I have, before installing it.