2010 Galant VR4 Team
Chromoly rear upper control arms
Last summer Andre at Pina Motorsports introduced his chromoly rear upper control arms for the 1G AWD and VR-4 platforms. They feature fully tig welded ends, heim joints, and a grease able ball joint end. The fine members of GalantVR4.org took up a collection and purchased a set for the RochesterDSM One Lap team.
Installing them is simple. Just unbolt the ball joint and give the give the spindle where the joint passes through a couple of good whacks with a hammer to pop them out. Then just unbolt the adjusters and the olds ones are out. I made sure to measure the old arms before I took them out of the car so I when I installed the new ones I would at least be in the ballpark with my alignment.
Here you can see the Curtis modified control arms these new ones will be replacing. These were “boxed in” for strength and they took everything we could throw at them last year. If the chromoly arms were not donated we would have used these again for sure.
Here is one the new PinaMotorSports fully TIG welded chromoly control arms ready to bolt in.
Here they are installed.
Tuners Nation Sub-Frame Bushings
Tuners Nation was kind enough to donate a set of there 1G AWD/VR-4 rear sub-frame and mustache brace bushing sets. Today I got to work installing them.
Here is how I did it.
1. remove the parking brake cables
2. remove the rear calipers and hang them on the rear springs.
3. unbolt the lower shock bolts and separate.
4. remove the rear section of the exhaust
5. disconnect the drive shaft from the diff.
6. put a jack under the diff and remove the 6 bolts holding the rear sub-frame/mustache brace and lower everything out of the car.
The One Lap car is in pretty good shape and seeing how I’ve had all the rear suspension out of the car just a year ago when I built it, everything came apart easily. I think I rolled the rear suspension in about an hour.
Looking at the entire rear suspension out of the car it becomes quite clear how important the front two sub-frame bushings are to the geometry of everything that attaches to it. Take note of how the diff bolts to the sub-frame where the upper and lower control arms tie in. That makes the mustache braces job even more important. Not only does it have to keep the pinion angle in control under hard launches its also the rear two attachment points for the whole rear suspension. Inspecting the stock 200k+ mile bushings shows that they’ve lived a hard life. The sub-frame bushings were coming apart and the mustache brace bushings weren’t that far behind. Replacing them with hard urethane will hold everything in place under hard cornering and let the suspension do its job.
To get the bushings out I first drilled around the center pins and then I used a sawz-all to finish cutting them out.
From there is was old school, get dirty, and burn the snot out of everything. I set the pins outside on a cinder block and set them on fire. Then I flipped the whole suspension with the diff pointing down so I can get at the sub-frame bushings. These have a two-piece inner sleeve that has to come out. Once again I set them on fire, waited, and then knocked them out with a hammer. There was still a bunch of rubber left in the sub-frame so I set that on fire too. Once the rubber gets hot and gooey most of it can be scraped out.
To get both the pins and the bushing cavities clean up I used a wire wheel in a hand drill. I greased up the bushings and pins and used a clamp to push them in.
Taking a cue from Curtis I spent some time bracing the mustache brace by fitting and welding some angle iron onto it. This will help keep the diff where it belongs under hard launches. I got as far as rolling the suspension back under the car before I called it quits for the day.
