I know a ton of people have these camber links and I've been super happy with mine. Worn bushings are just a thing you have to deal with when you drive a car hard. I haven't seen anyone mention replacing bushings in these arms so I thought I'd do a quick write-up for those who are curious.

The good news is that Hotchkis sells "rebuild" kits for their arms. The bad news is that mine were fairly worn after 15k miles or so. The not sure if good or bad news is that I'm pretty sure the reason the bushing failed was because the bolt had loosened and was no longer torqued properly. It just seems like it was the one bushing. So it's probably my fault that the bushing went bad. When I put it all back together this time I took the time to remove the exhaust and heat shield so that I could put a torque wrench on it and torque it down properly instead of just cranking on it with a box end wrench. Hopefully I won't need the other bushings that came in the rebuild kit.

Anyways here is a video of the slop when I figured the bushing was worn.

I called up Hotchkis and they took my order over the phone for a rebuild kit for 2 camber links. Ended up being like $25. It did take them about two weeks to ship them out because they were backordered. It would have been nice to know they were backordered when I ordered them but it's not a huge deal. Now they have lots.

Came in a box with the part # on it...


Inside was a package with 8 bushing "halves", some grease, and some new caps for the zerk fittings.


You can see what the old damaged bushing looked like. Kind of deformed a little. You can see the gap between the bushing and the inner sleeve. That shouldn't be there.




Getting the old ones out was actually kind of a pain. I used a 2-jaw puller and a socket to press the old inner sleeve out. Then I was able to pull apart the two pieces of the bushing. The bushing didn't look particularly torn up when I pulled it apart which is good. The grease that Hotchkis sells and that comes with the bushing rebuild kits is the stickiest most gawdawful stuff I've had to deal with. What a huge mess I made and what a huge pain to clean up. But at least you know that grease isn't going anywhere!


I didn't take pictures of the re-assembly but it's just the reverse of removal. Stuff the two bushing halves in the arm. Then lube up the inner sleeve and press it in. Bolt the arm back in and torque the bolts down.

Any questions let me know and I'll try to answer them.

 

I know your feeling. I had my driver side loose at the top bolt. I still can't figure out wtf is rattling up a storm back there anymore. everything is tightened like no other and still can't figure it out. Anyways, what size tq wrench did you use to get up in that tight space on the top bolt of the frame because it is very tight spacing.

 

The auto-x class we run in only allows for replacing one camber link so I replaced the lower one. With the exhaust disconnected from the hangers and kind of pushed out of the way you can unbolt the heat shielding and kind of wiggle it out to get it out of the way. Then it's super easy to get a 1/2" torque wrench on the nut which faces the back of the car. I believe the torque spec is something like 81 lbs*ft.

 

Right right, the nut is the easy part, it's the bolt that is sunken in at an angle inside the frame which was a pain in the @ss for me to get to.

 

Ahh yes that bolt head is a real pain to get to. You can't fit a ratchet with a socket attached up into the space to get onto the bolt head. What I was able to do was first put the ratchet up in that space (standard cheapie 1/2" drive Craftsman ratchet) and then once the ratchet was up there I was able to slip the socket up into the space and get the socket on the ratchet. The socket I used was just a standard 18mm (I think) craftsman socket. Not a deep socket. It's kind of a pain but once you figure out the "process" it's pretty quick.